Thanks for the congrats everyone. This is definitely one of my favorite threads also. It's very interesting seeing the different type of scratch offs & other tickets in the different states.
James - To answer your question, I used to play primarily scratch-offs (alot of them) and did tons of research everyday to determine which ones to buy. As in all Lotto games no one can ever tell where a winner will be, but knowing where past winners were and keeping an eye on the stats does help.
First of all I stay away from scratchers that have just won in my immediate area. I tend to buy only the ones where it seems there is a winner due in the near future.
Kind of a crazy story on the $250K...I had a dream one night that I was going to win. I played heavily for about 5 months or so to the point my wife keep getting on my case. I kept telling her "babe, Im going to win just watch"...She was hesitant for a while, but I had that feeling so I kept playing and playing. Sometimes you just "get the feeling" its hard to describe. I knew it wasnt "false hope", it was something real.
Fast forward to Christmas time a few years ago. I was rounding up my last minute stocking stuffers for my family and decided to go to Publix to get some scratch offs for myself and my wife. Christmas Eve - right before closing time. I bought my wife $50 worth which included the $10 Monopoly.
On Christmas day, my wife was scratching the tickets at the kitchen table & I was on the floor playing with our 3 month old. She scracthed all of them and the $10 Monopoly was the last one left. I started getting a weird feeling and decided to grab my daughter and stand behind my wife while she scratched the $10 Monopoly. As soon as she scratched the #1, she paused for a second and looked at me, then continued to scratch the $250K prize. I started yelling and telling her "I told you I would do it, I told you babe"....
Needles to say, she doesnt give me a hard time about buying lotto anymore
Also, I dont play scratchers nearly as much anymore, maybe $50 a week or so. Our big win was right after our first daughter was born and came at the perfect time. We kind of lucked out and my name wasnt in the news or the FL Lottery site or anything, which we were very happy about =)
I switched over to Fantasy 5 and have my own way of picking #'s. Ive gotten close a few times and will stick with it and see what happens.
Good luck to all!