I am an Engineer by trade and spend some time with the hobby of scratch offs.. Most people think that the lottery is a tax on those who have poor math skills. In my case that's not true :)
I buy my tickets mainly in the PA suburbs and have noted a trend. I have purchased 30-40 whole books this year (mostly $10, $20, and $30) and about the same over the past few years. One trend that is real is that winning tickets rarely follow each other. They do at times; but mostly after a winning ticket a loser will immediately follow. My math puts the likelihood of back to back winners at about 18% or 1 in 5.54... These are not official lottery statistics they are simply my unscientific results based on my research.
But what skews the results to make you win less than, in many cases, the odds posted on the ticket? Most games I play in PA have posted odds of a winner at 1:2.81 to 1:4... So what drops the true odds to in many cases 1:5.54?
I track all of my tickets in excel. It's a simple spreadsheet that helps me understand what I spend versus what I win and have learned that...
The answer is simple.. it's PEOPLE..
Yes. People kill your odds.. Someone either steps up to the counter or the machine.. Buys a ticket and takes it to their car or the counter and scratches it... Winner? They won't buy another ticket from that roll.. loser? Then they buy the next one and the next one searching for that winner. Once they win? They stop... And guess who buys the next ticket? YOU... So based on my math you have a 1 in 5.54 chance of winning.. that's between 25-40% less that the posted odds. That's why you can't and won't win even with a good ticket ie: $30 ticket.
Now we all know that winning tickets do follow winning tickets so this is not an exact science but you should pay very close attention to the results from full rolls. It's one of the reasons that it's always better to buy a ticket when the roll has had a series of losers.. The roll is due.
This game is a grind, sort of akin to Black Jack..
How can you improve your chances? One way is to buy a full roll of tickets. That's the only way to really get as close as possible to the posted odds on the ticket. Aside from that your at the mercy of the bankroll of the player before you.
Good Luck