I think it is a cool gesture and shows the type of character Jackpotchasing is. Most people wouldn't even think to consider doing anything for strangers after hitting a large win. I don't consider you all strangers although I know some of you better than others; I consider many of you to be friends of mine just as I would consider someone I talk to in real life. In fact, I think I currently hold the record for meeting the most LP posters in real life as I've met about 7 people from this forum IRL. I've said it before, but if I ever hit a jackpot ($1M or more), I'd like to do something nice for alot of the posters in this community. $100k was life altering, but it sure isn't life changing. It was enough for me to do alot of nice things for family members including paying for a sibling's college tuition, and clear my own debt. $75k can be spent very quickly by a young man with graduate school debt, and a large family from a low-income community. The sad thing is when people make these types of comments, out of the shear kindness of their hearts to even consider giving "strangers" money, these words can be twisted by others who will feel entitled whenever someone does hit a big prize. For that reason, I urge people to be careful.
It is indeed very mechanical. Other games, specifically $10 and lower seem to have more random payouts which makes scratching them more interesting. I think scratching books of Super Millions can get depressing once you learn the pattern. Unless you're lucky to find a big win like $500 and up, you're going to lose money. Of all the Super Millions books I've scratched, I'd say there was only one or two books that was profitable from only having multiple $100 winners. There are hot books out there for any game, but the overwhelming majority follows these patterns. The extreme predictability removes the fun in scratching books of a game, although I have to admit, it is cool when you see a random claim ticket in there. I recognize how insanely lucky I was to find that $100k winner, it was an absolute miracle that a single digit number match and large prize of that tier remained after the lottery's shady operational practices. Anyone who buys books of scratchoff tickets can learn the patterns. I think the best thing scratcher players can do is buy random tickets. I know buying books at least guarantees you a certain payout and satisfies the question of "Well, what if the jackpot were on ticket X?", but is also ensures that a person is likely to regress toward the mean and lose their money in the long-run unless they are fortunate enough to find monster wins.
I had a conversation with a lottery staff member in a high position today who told me he thinks the final SM jackpot was destroyed potentially due to retailers changing ownership or other "operational practices", and doesn't think it is worth chasing. I appreciate, and deeply respect him for his transparency. With how few books remain, literally, it appears we were chasing a ghost. I'm also perplexed as to how we didn't see any $5k, $10k, or $20k winners. I'd assume this community cleared through at least 200+ books together. $1k prizes have popped up which is to be expected with odds of 1 in 1.8k roughly on Super Millions, but the elusive $5k which is 1 in 40k, 10k which is 1 in 67.2k, or 20k prize which is 1 in 134k seem to have evaded us. Crazy considering there's prizes such as 10X $1000, 2X $10k for a $20k hit, or even a "win all" prize with $1k under each number on SM remaining. Those would be impossible to miss, so it is likely those books were just flat out destroyed.
@ Jasefan - Nice win on the $2 Fast $100! That game, along with the $2 Gold Rush Doubler are some of the best tickets out at the moment in my opinion. I'm wishing you the best of luck, and hoping you come here with a $20k-$50k win soon.