Whenever the lottery releases new scratchers, people buy the new scratch-off games on the blind faith that the newer the game the better the chances to getting the remaining prizes before they’re claimed. But is buying new scratchers really the best strategy?
We took a look at the data, and the answer is: Not really. In fact, you might have slight advantage buying older scratcher games.
Scratchers can be worth buying, at least some that have better than average odds. They can have much better odds of actually winning some cash than the big name Virginia Lottery games like Megamillions, Keno, or Pick 3 and Pick 4.
But it might not matter when you buy them. The real question is: which scratchers are the best to buy right now? The only metric that matters is whether a scratcher game has the best odds for a high probability of winning prizes.
Data Shows Tickets Go Fast at First . . .
Since we gather the data posted every day on the official Virginia Lottery website at VALottery.com, we can easily see whether the probabilities of winning a prize get any better or worse the longer the game goes on. Is it going to be Extreme Millions, or Hot 777s? Here at ScratcherStats.com, our first four of 9 tips for winning Virginia Lottery scratchers are to check the scratchers data. You can find a ranking list on our site and more in-depth stats here also.
Right now, among the 85 scratcher games available in Virginia, 44 have only been in circulation for less than 90 days, including four that started just this month.
Surely, these games have more prizes remaining, including top prizes. From data collected February 22 through April 18, 2022, people throughout Virginia bought about 543,000 scratchers per day. This number excludes the tens of millions of new scratchers that the Virginia Lottery commission injects into stores every month. As you can see in this chart, Virginia store shelves received a boost of 19.2 million tickets on March 2 and 11.1 million on April 9.
Another chart, below, shows the average number of prizes claimed by the number of days since the game’s start date. Just a quick look at this one and you can see that people buy many more tickets at the start of the game. So, in a way, the top winning scratchers are the new games. In fact, by the end of the first 60 days, you can expect that people will have bought over 1.5 million tickets – and about 21% of those are for scratch-off games that started less than 60 days earlier.
. . . but Most New Scratcher Tickets are Losers
Here’s the really interesting part: the ratio of people buying losing tickets is higher than winners for those first 60 days or so. While the average of winners bought to losers is usually 22% to 78%, during the first 60-90 days this ratio shifts to 14% winners and to as much as 86% losers.
While people are buying more scratchers early in a game’s lifespan, more of these scratchers are losing tickets. People clear out more losers from the scratcher rolls when a game is new.
Why then make a fuss about a new scratcher game? The data indicates that you may even benefit from buying older games – there’s fewer losers to waste your time and money on.
One question is whether the hullabaloo about a new game is for you, the humble gambler with hopes of winning a nice prize, or for the Lottery commission. You’ll see the Virginia Lottery pump out new holiday-themed games. Even if some have the worst odds of any game, they go quickly. People buy them perhaps as easy office “appreciation” gifts or stocking stuffers. Some games are only open for short period, like Hot 777s – started in January this year and just closed on April 15.
But many games that have been out there for years, like Super Cash Frenzy has been around since March 2018 and still offers two tickets with the top prize of $4 million. Extreme Millions has been around since October 2017. Only recently did it sell out of its four chances to win $10 million but the Virginia Lottery officially closed the game on April 15, 2022. Yet another reason to look at the data is to check for top prizes, though the game may still be worth buying.
The Real Question: Do the Scratcher Odds Ever Get Better?
The fact is that all that really matters is how many scratcher prizes are out there right now. Does the probability of winning scratcher prizes increase the longer a game goes on?
This scatter plot chart shows that, in fact, the probability does get better for older games. Even as the number of prizes still available decreases from nearly 100% to around 25%, the average probability of winning a prize actually increases, albeit slightly. The average probability changes from 25% for those games in their first 60 days to an average 28% for games older than three years.
So buying older scratcher games can be a good lottery scratchers strategy because it offers an edge – at least a thin edge. Is it because many of the losing tickets have been bought already? Maybe that has an effect. The correlation between time and probability is nearly none – only an R-square of 0.106, meaning that the days since the game start date only explains about 10.6% of the variation in the prize probability.
Still, some edge is better than none. The trick to buying scratchers is to be choosey when picking the lottery scratcher game. Don’t just buy the game because it’s new.
Buy Scratchers by the Best Odds, Not the Age
When you examine games for how many remaining winners are in circulation, then all that matters is which give you the best odds right now. It doesn’t matter if the game started yesterday, or five years ago. It doesn’t even really matter if the top prize is already gone. What really matters is: which scratcher game offers the best odds for you?
If you want to know which is the best lottery scratcher to buy in Virginia, then use the data in this list. You can filter it by the best scratcher odds, based on a daily counts of data offered by the official Virginia Lottery website. Find even more stats for each Virginia Lottery scratcher game on this page.
Here’s a pro tip: look for the scratchers that require buying the fewest for the best chances of winning by using our “max tickets to buy” measure.
Use this data to your advantage – and you might just land some cash in your wallet!
