I've always wanted to join, but hadn't until now. Thought I'd finally register and add a bit to this thread, even though I don't live in CA, I still travel there often enough to play.
Last week on the way to Santa Cruz for a buddy's wedding I had a plan to play the $5m scratcher, as not only is the prize bigger than here in the Portland area ($5m vs. $250k) but any time I've played it I at least made 50% of my money back. Upon entering Weed I picked up 2 $5M's and 1 Black gold along with about 5 crosswords for the wife. $20 winner on 1 of the $5M's and the black gold was $0. I don't care about the crosswords, they're like $2.
On to the next planned scratcher stop, Dunnigan. I had previously won $250 playing the $5 Monopoly the year before on a similar trip, so I thought WTH, why not? I bought 2 $5M's. I was pretty excited because I got 000 and 001. 000 being my long-time favorite on any game. Uuuuunfortunately the pregnant wife accompanying me called dibs on the 000 so I didn't even get to scratch the one I wanted!
BUST! Both cards racked up losses.
On to the wedding in Santa Cruz. With no more stops for tickets on the way down.
In the hotel I signed up for the 2nd chance lottery (yes, I'm not a resident but still) and started entering tickets. I get to good ol' 000 and sure enough, red warning. I didn't even have to scratch it. I look over and say "nice, this is the second time you've missed a winner" and let her scratch it. $500. Yeahhhhh. So, instead of a loser, or a likely-to-be-thrown-away-if-not-for-second-chance lottery ticket - it was a pretty big winner (though, still not what I'm after!). Oh, and about the "Second time", she did the same thing with a $2 scratcher up here in Oregon and it was worth $100 because she forgot to scratch the bonus letters. Doh!
I play a lot, so really, $500 didn't get me too excited, in fact I'd seen my brother win $500 on this exact game. However, it's nice to come up ahead on this game after losing a few thousand over the course of a couple years on the $20's up here in OR/WA. I love that specific game and it's really too bad the states closest to me don't follow suit.
Anyway, I'll post more around here. Oh, and I won $100 on a WA Gem 7's scratcher today as well, but...this is the CA thread so I'll leave it at that.