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The Missing Scratchers Stats: States Not Included on the Site

September 10, 2023 October 7, 2023

ScratcherStats.com aims to provide lottery enthusiasts and scratcher players with the data tools to make the best choices when standing at the convenience store counter. And you can get this data on remaining prizes for many US states in the same place! Sure, you can look at the data on the official lottery commission websites, but here you get all the stats for each state – we do the math for you, so you can know exactly how many tickets to buy for the best odds of winning a profit.

Map of US states whose lottery scratch off data is included ScratcherStats.com or not.

However, you may have noticed that the map on the home page only shows a limited number of states. Much like with the lottery in general, many states offer scratch-offs while others do not. If they do offer lottery scratch-offs, then most state lottery commissions commit to being transparent and provide players with data on the number of prizes out there. Like casinos, lottery commissions know that players will keep playing if they get information to work with. But some states don’t put enough data for us to calculate the statistics. Some states block us from grabbing that data.

For us to work with the data, we have three requirements:

The ability to automatically grab the data off the lottery’s website.
The overall odds of winning a prize, to calculate the total number of tickets issued.
The number of remaining scratch prizes, to know the currents odds of winning after prizes are claimed.

Here’s three examples of states we couldn’t include on ScratcherStats.com:

No Odds Data – New Jersey

New Jersey is absent from ScratcherStats.com because the New Jersey Lottery Commission does not provide detailed information on the odds of winning for their scratcher games. Without this critical data, it is impossible to calculate the statistics that ScratcherStats.com relies on to provide users with valuable insights. We can’t tell you percent of prizes of the total remaining scratchers, because that calculation requires the odds multiplied by the total number of prizes. You might as well just go directly to the New Jersey Lottery website for what little data they offer.

Missing Data on Remaining Prizes – Colorado

Colorado is another state with incomplete data on the website. Colorado does provide the odds of winning for their scratcher games and the number of prizes at the start of a game. However, the Colorado lottery website doesn’t post updated numbers on remaining scratcher tickets with unclaimed prizes. Without that data, we can’t improve much on what’s already posted on the CO Lottery website. We could only provide a list of the scratcher games with the best odds when the game started, which could have been months or even years earlier.

No Prize Numbers At All – Iowa and Wisconsin

Iowa’s lottery website provides some data on their scratch games, such as the overall odds per game and even the odds per prize. But the site offers neither the number of prizes remaining nor the number of prizes issued at the start of the game, nor even a total number of prizes issued. Thus, there’s no data to calculate scratch game statistics with.

Lottery Data Locked in a JPEG or PDF – Delaware and Pennsylvania

Most lottery commission websites post the data in HTML tables, or within DIVs. Some make the data available within JSON format through API requests. However, Delaware posts their data within a picture. For each scratch off game, you can see the data within a jpeg format picture, like this. Did Delaware post the data for you to see? Yes. But can we easily get it to use for statistical calculations? Not so much. Maybe we’ll figure that out sometime. Likewise, Pennsylvania posts the data on remaining prizes for each scratch-off game in an HTML table, but only for the top six prizes! The rest of the data is in a PDF like this.

Data Gathering Restrictions – South Carolina

South Carolina’s lottery website implemented measures to prevent automated data scraping, making it challenging for websites like ScratcherStats.com to collect the necessary information. This technical obstacle has resulted in South Carolina’s exclusion from the website.

No Lottery Scratchers – Utah, Alabama, Nevada, Alaska, and Hawaii

Utah stands out as a state that does not offer lottery scratchers at all. Blame the legacy of the Church of Latter Day Saints in Utah, or the southern Baptist belt for Alabama. Nevada, with its thriving casino industry, has chosen not to introduce lottery scratchers to avoid competition with its established gaming sector. As a result, there are no scratcher games in Nevada to report statistics for on ScratcherStats.com. Other states that don’t offer the lottery at all include Alaska and Hawaii.

Weak Search Traffic – Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, North Dakota, Maine, Vermont

These states are beautiful, and maybe that’s why Google Trends shows few to none search traffic for lottery scratch games – because people have too many other things to do. No matter whether using “scratchers”, “scratch off”, “scratch games”, these states don’t make the list on the Google Trends’ map. So we’d rather put the effort into data for states where there’s demand for data on the lottery scratchers with the best odds.

States Coming Soon

On a more positive note, ScratcherStats.com is continually working to expand its coverage. States like Michigan, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and Arkansas are expected to be represented on the website in the near future. The inclusion of these states will broaden the scope of data available to scratcher players and enthusiasts.

Conclusion

While ScratcherStats.com strives to provide comprehensive and up-to-date information on scratcher games across the United States, we’ll never be able to include every state due to the unavailability of data, technical restrictions, or unique state policies. However, the website continues to grow and evolve, with plans to include more states in its coverage, ensuring that scratcher players have access to valuable statistics to enhance their gaming experience.

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9 Tips for Winning California Lottery Scratchers

September 4, 2023 September 4, 2023

We’ve been studying the secrets behind the California Lottery Scratcher system to really understand the ways the Average Joe can maximize his chances. Here’s some tips you should remember before you buy any lottery scratcher:

the 9 tips for maximizing chances at winning money with Virginia Lottery scratcher tickets. — The 9 tips in short

1. Check the scratcher prize odds first.

Many don’t realize it but the California Lottery commission posts all the odds for each game on its website: https://www.calottery.com/scratchers. The website shows the overall odds for winning any prize along with the odds of winning the top prize. For this $30 scratcher game, that comes to 1 in 2.98 for any prize and 1 in 3,025,367 for the top prize of $10 million.

That means you can do the math and see whether it’s worth a higher cost for better odds of prizes that return more money. In comparison to that $30 per ticket scratcher game which has odds of 1 in 2.98 for winning $30 or more, this $1 scratcher game has odds of 1 in 4.56 of winning a prize. Additionally, the odds of winning the top prize for that $30 game may be much better – 1 in 480,631 – but the top prize is only $5,000

2. Check the number of remaining lottery scratcher prizes

While you’re looking at the scratcher game pages, you may have noticed the table showing the number of prizes remaining in circulation for that game along with the number of prizes distributed at the start of the game. Every seller of scratchers scans winning prizes into the California Lottery system, so they know exactly how many prizes remain available to win. The CALottery.com website updates these counts daily.

While you may be just as likely to win a prize at any time, due to random disbursement of prizes among the rolls issued to sellers, logically it makes sense that fewer prizes in circulation = prizes are harder to find. The remaining prize counts will tell you if this scratcher game is more depleted than others.

3. Check the current odds, not just the starting odds, from the number of remaining scratchers

Under number 1, I should have said you can check what the odds were at the start of game. You can calculate the current odds of winning any prize from the count of remaining prizes, if you do a little reverse math: total up the number of prizes remaining and multiply the sum by the overall odds to get the total number of scratcher tickets issued. Then divide the sum of prizes from that total of tickets issued.

Note that the overall odds never change – you used that number to calculate the total tickets issued, after all, and in theory all prizes are claimed equally over time. However, you can calculate the probability of landing any particular prize from the count of remaining tickets with that prize. AND you don’t have to rely on the outdated initial count of prizes issued; it can be accurate within the last 24 hours.

If that sounds like a lot of work, we’re here to help! Check out our list of current odds for all scratchers on our home page: scratcherstats,com. In fact we take it one step further – that list ranks the scratchers by the best current odds. See our Methods page for more details on the rankings by probability.

4. Don’t just check the probability of any prize, but the probability of winning prizes that return a profit

Winning a prize is always fun, but more often that prize will be for the amount of time you spent buying that ticket. Don’t get me wrong, I like getting money back, but I prefer getting a little something extra. That’s why you should calculate the probability of winning a profit, not just the probability of winning any prizes, from the number of prizes remaining. On our ranking list, we’ve factored that into the rankings. Find out more about how we compiled that ranking here.

The odds of a “profit prize” are lower than winning any prize, of course. For example, looking at the statistics we list for each California scratcher, the average of winning any prize is 19%, while the average of winning a profit is 12%. But those odds of a profit range depending on the game, anywhere from 3% to 21%. If you plunk down cash for a scratcher, you’re going to want to get the one most likely to return some extra cash. That’s why you should use our list before buying.

5. Play the games with more prizes, not bigger prizes

If you’re following the tips above then you’re ready to play for more frequent small wins rather than rare big wins. Think of trying to find lots of coins buried in the mud with a few rare gold dubloons. If you aim to scoop up as many quarters, dimes, and nickels with the attitude that a big win would be nice but not expected, you may find yourself winning a pretty nice pot of change in the end.

6. Buy more than one scratcher at a time

The heart of the best strategy when buying scratchers is this: buy a string of scratchers, ideally from the same roll. As explained in more detail here, the reason is that you maximize your chances by buying a number of scratchers most likely to contain a winning ticket. Along with calculating the probability of winning tickets from the number of remaining prizes presented on the website, you can can also calculate the standard deviation. Given the statistical laws of a normal distribution, you are 99.7% likely to turn up at least one winning ticket when purchasing a string of tickets equal to the odds of winning plus three standard deviations from a single roll of scratchers.

7. Buy only the number of scratchers you need to win a prize

Some people think buying a whole roll of scratchers will guarantee a big winner, or at least enough prizes to make some money over the amount spent on the roll. But according to the law of diminishing returns, that’s a waste of money. You’ll get a minuscule increase in odds by buying all those tickets. On the other hand, you can maximize your potential returns by buying a number of tickets equal to one standard deviation from the mean odds of a prize worth more than the cost of the ticket (i.e., mean “profit” prize odds + one standard deviation). Depending on the scratcher game, that means buying anywhere from 28 to just 4 tickets. The logic is explained in this blog post.

The ranking of scratchers provides a list of scratcher tickets with the best tradeoff between number of tickets to buy and probability of winning. Filter the list for the scratchers that require the least number of tickets in order to win a prize. Of a total 85 scratchers, there are 19 of which you need to only buy 10 tickets for the best odds of winning.

8. Take advantage of second chances

California Lottery offers second chances to a win with your losing tickets. Scratch off that logo to find the scratcher serial number and you can enter to win a drawing every week for a prize worth up to $25,000. In fact, if you keep an eye out, you might find these second chance tickets in the trash.

9. Keep your losers for tax season

The IRS lets you deduct gambling losses from your winnings. If you do win, you’re going to want to keep all your winnings, of course. The way to do that is to take advantage of tax deductions. Doing so means you keep the government from claiming 24% of those winnings. Read this blog post for more details.

More Tips:

The Secret on the Back of a Scratcher Ticket

April 29, 2023 September 4, 2023

Start of an Obsession with Lottery Scratch-offs

The lottery is a fool’s errand. Everyone knows that, right? Still, every now and then I would buy a lottery scratcher ticket at the counter. There’s a joy in scratching off each section of the game, revealing the possible prize to meet the hope in your heart. Then of course the disappointment as it’s worth nothing at all, but at the cost of only a few dollars to spare. And if the prize turns out to be a a few dollars, then it was a few moments of free entertainment. That’s rare in our society.

Then one day I looked at the back and spotted a now about the odds, something like 1 in 4.16. How have you never noticed that before? One in every four scratchers is worth something?

I’m used to hearing the lottery odds of 1 in 60 million or whatever is announced in the daily news. But this is shockingly reachable. And of course that tidbit is tucked away on the mass of text on the backside, opposite where you really care to look, making it seem like the Virginia Lottery didn’t want you to spot that key detail.

This is where my journey started in finding the best lottery scratchers strategy, using real data to maximize returns and limit losses.

You know that probability of 25% is only for the smallest amount, the $1 you paid for the cheapest ticket. Then again, what if I knew the odds of each scratcher before I bought them. Before I pointed at one of dozens behind the counter I knew which was most likely to give me the best odds?

Get home and Google it – boom, the official Virginia Lottery website (valottery.com) comes up with a page dedicated to all the scratcher games. Even better, they post not just the odds of any prize. They also post the number of prizes still out there, the remaining scratchers unclaimed AND the number the Lottery issued to start with.

My mind raced with the possibilities with these numbers. I could easily calculate the probabilities of any prize, at any day of the week. If I had a list of games sorted by the best odds, I could walk into 7-11 armed with the knowledge to be an informed gambler, not just the average sucker.

Just a few hours’ work with a spreadsheet and I had it: a list of games sorted by the best odds of winning. And just like that, my love affair with the lottery scratchers was on.

Digging into Scratchers Data

I’m probably one of the “educated fools” among lottery enthusiast types. Or maybe I’m just “The Dreamer.” But can’t a man dream of finding an edge in the cracks somewhere?

Once I had a list, I wanted to add more features, more variables by which to rank them. Which games saw the biggest decreases in the number of prizes? What does it even mean when prizes are claimed faster than for other games? Even more importantly, when is it ever potentially profitable to buy scratchers? How many do you really need to win a profit? Is it possible to roll small winnings toward more scratchers and eventually hit a big win?

So the Google Sheet expanded, and expanded some more. Then I wanted to make sure I had daily numbers, so I built a way to scrape the data from valottery.com every day to update the statistics.

There’s more data I could dig out from these numbers. I could figure out strategies for weighing the returns, like the expected value, and factor that into a ranking. I could create rankings by not just the number of prizes remaining, but by the best probabilities, and then by the highest expected value. Then I could provide an average ranking.

I realized that if prizes are scattered throughout the rolls, but there were destined to be prizes within an ideal cluster size. Furthermore, I could show the maximum number of scratchers to buy for each scratcher game.

And then I thought: everyone should have this list. Everyone deserves a chance to have the best chances.

Virginia Lottery Scratcher Rundown list on this website

Why Virginia, you may ask? Well, because I live here. I wanted to know the odds of the games i saw in the counter of the 7-Eleven down the street from my house. Maybe in the future I’ll expand this site to help people in California, Florida, New York, or whereever.

I may have built this website for me, but you can use the data all you want. Have this list up on your phone when you next walk into 7-Eleven or Wawa or Sheetz or whatever convenience store. Tell the clerk, “this one, because I know it’s got the best odds. And yes, give me seven of them.”

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