State-by-State Comparison: Scratchers Sales vs PB/MM SalesPrev TopicNext Topic

• Stat$talker

  

  700 light yrs West of Milky Way Galaxy's Center
  United States
  Member #200,642
  September 1, 2019
  4,159 Posts
  Offline
  Jul 20, 2022, 3:08 pm

  ▲▼
  In response to cottoneyedjoe

  Quote: Originally posted by cottoneyedjoe on Jul 20, 2022

  I also have doubts about how random the distribution of scratchers top prizes are, geographically. A lottery has the capability to control distribution very precisely, if it wants to. So why wouldn't it?

  "A lottery has the capability to control distribution very precisely, if it wants to. So why wouldn't it?"

  Uuuuh, You wood'nt by @ny chance be sayin whut Ole Stat$talker'z beeeen sayin fa quite sumtime naaah,.. WoOd'jah ?

  Yeap, THAT'Z the cottonpickineye dea ..They CONTROL Distribution..!!  But not just Scratcherz,..but...

                JaCkPoTz 2oooooooo

                  "So Why wouldn't it?"

  So?, dig up info on WHEAA Jackpotz are won..!!

   

  -Stat$talker

  ...MATH... The final Stochastic frontier...

  These are the Lottery Voyages of Stat$talker..!!

  The ongoing Mission,..to seek out the Laws of "Probability Math"...

   to master its rules to invoke...to Conquer ALL Major Jackpots..!!

  ...To boldly go,... Where NO Player has gone before...!!
• cottoneyedjoe

  

  United States
  Member #197,030
  March 28, 2019
  1,639 Posts
  Offline
  Jul 20, 2022, 3:17 pm

  ▲▼
  In response to Stat$talker

  Quote: Originally posted by Stat$talker on Jul 20, 2022

  "A lottery has the capability to control distribution very precisely, if it wants to. So why wouldn't it?"

  Uuuuh, You wood'nt by @ny chance be sayin whut Ole Stat$talker'z beeeen sayin fa quite sumtime naaah,.. WoOd'jah ?

  Yeap, THAT'Z the cottonpickineye dea ..They CONTROL Distribution..!!  But not just Scratcherz,..but...

                JaCkPoTz 2oooooooo

                  "So Why wouldn't it?"

  So?, dig up info on WHEAA Jackpotz are won..!!

   

  -Stat$talker

  Because draw games are much simpler which makes tampering more obvious. And since the data show draw game sales are dwarfed by that of scratchers, it's not worth it.

  Scratchers are like a black box and they are a more complicated product. States run dozens of different scratchers series at a time, each series has a dozen or more prize levels. It is much more difficult to see distribution manipulation under those circumstances. And since they dominate sales, it is definitely worth the lottery's time to tweak the randomness.

  Just my opinion though.
• OhSoClose

  

  Tyrone, PA
  United States
  Member #198,217
  May 15, 2019
  231 Posts
  Offline
  Jul 20, 2022, 4:42 pm

  ▲▼

  Since we're theorizing here with zero proof, try this one on for size. You're the state lottery commission and your overall goal is to maximize profits without doing anything that could be proven as cheating if it ever came to light. You're also sitting on a mountain of data, so how do you steer scratchers to locations where they be least likely to ever be claimed? That's fairly easy, I'd think. You track the jackpot data distributed by county, then look at jackpots claimed to calculate which counties have the highest ratio of unclaimed jackpots. Then you steer more jackpots to those counties with the highest totals of unclaimed jackpots. You're hoping that the unclaimed trend continues. Maybe it does and maybe it doesn't, but you have a fairly simple way to put your thumb on the scale that's technically legal.
• Stack47

  

  Kentucky
  United States
  Member #32,651
  February 14, 2006
  10,301 Posts
  Offline
  Jul 21, 2022, 5:13 pm

  ▲▼
  In response to OhSoClose

  Quote: Originally posted by OhSoClose on Jul 19, 2022

  Have you noticed the sheer number of youtube channels of people who scratch off sometimes hundreds of dollars in tickets per session? It's amazing. Pennsylvania came out with a $50 scratcher not that long ago. I haven't had the budget or will to buy any, but the youtube channels jumped all over them and they were consistently disappointing.

  Many of the youtube channel guys consider a successful session to get half their money back. I don't know on what plane of existence that counts as success. They must be making money off of views, because I don't see any of them making a profit off the tickets.

  There was a story about a frequent scratch-off jackpot winner that bought rolls of tickets of games with many top prizes unclaimed. The strategy was the store might get a jackpot winning ticket in the next roll. Don't know if they made an after tax profit.

  Found a story about a group from Princeton doing something similar.

  "When will we ever learn?"
• OhSoClose

  

  Tyrone, PA
  United States
  Member #198,217
  May 15, 2019
  231 Posts
  Offline
  Jul 21, 2022, 6:27 pm

  ▲▼
  In response to Stack47

  Quote: Originally posted by Stack47 on Jul 21, 2022

  There was a story about a frequent scratch-off jackpot winner that bought rolls of tickets of games with many top prizes unclaimed. The strategy was the store might get a jackpot winning ticket in the next roll. Don't know if they made an after tax profit.

  Found a story about a group from Princeton doing something similar.

  That kind of fits the theory. If the lottery is directing big jackpot winners to stores where they know big winners in the past have gone unclaimed, that could explain how some locations get a reputation as a 'lucky' store. There's a couple places around here like that. Every couple years, they get a $250k or greater winner.

  It feels kind of cynical to think the lotteries would be attempting to encourage unclaimed winners, but I've noticed in Pennsylvania, they've started using really strange typefaces on some of the tickets that are difficult to read. Might be the intention is for a slightly higher percentage of the winners to go in the trash because the ticket's so hard to read. Every unclaimed winner nudges the profit margin up a bit. Makes you wonder.