Anyone feel free to tell me their strategy, not only on scratch offs, but online draw games as well. Here is what I have had the most success with right now. I will spend $10 at a time usually, and I will purchase 2 separate $5 tickets. There are several reasons for this.
1) If I buy 4 $5 tickets, and win $20, then I have just wasted my time. Sure I broke even, and that alone is grounds for celebration sometimes, especially after a hard losing streak, but I still made no money.
2)I buy a lot of my tickets from a very busy lotto retailer. There are many hardcore scratchers who have their favorite game, and play it until they win, just like many of us have done. If I come in after that guy, I am probably screwed, if I buy two of the same tickets, right after he just won. Then I am faced with losing $10, and counting my losses, or I can keep playing until I win, and then chances are good that I will win less than I paid. Not such a good idea. Sure it can happen otherwise, but statistically, and realistically, most of the games I play will fall on a winning ticket every 3 to 5 tickets, plus or minus, but pretty close. The odds of him only playing my 2 favorite games, and those two games alone, are not as good. He may play both, but I bet he won't sit there and scratch both until he wins, and furthermore, they are not likely to win in the exact same order.
3)Even though it gives me potentially worse odds, if I buy one of the $5 tickets with the very best odds, and one from a newer $5 game, I usually do better that way. I have spent $10 to make $20 quite a few times. Not getting rich, but doing OK, when that is working.
4)The worst thing I have been guilty of recently is changing my mind, and switching between two $5 tickets and one $10 ticket. Although the $10 ticket has slightly better odds, I have not consistently won any more money off of a $10 ticket than a $5 ticket. I need to pick a program and stick with it. I have limited myself to no more than $20 a day on the lottery as a whole, most of the time. I usually spend $10, sometimes less. I am going to buy a book of tickets one day. It is not because I think that I will win more than I paid in, it would be nice if I won more money, but what I am counting on is seeing if I can pick out a clear pattern of winners and losers, numbers, spacing, end or beginning, etc. (I am sure that the next book will be just the opposite).
5)You can figure out within a pack at least, roughly where the tickets are likely to hit. I have had the best luck, overall, on $10 Jingle Jumbo Bucks, for example, on tickets ending in 5 or 9. But the last ticket I purchased ended on 9 and lost, so nothing is certain.
6)I go to other retailers as well. Now that greatly increases my odds, as there are not as likely to have the same person playing the same 2 tickets, where I play. I also believe that big prizes are likely to be somewhat spread out. The station that I usually play at has only told me that they have had $500 winners. I visited a station I had never been to, and it had a $5000 winning check on the wall, from the Georgia Lottery Commission. I do not, however trust this fellow. I had asked him what the ticket number was, and he told me, but it appeared that he had multiple ticket packs, in the same window! I could be wrong, but this seems highly illegal to me. Even though many of them claim otherwise, I believe that the clerks in some stations win as much or more than the customers.
8)I scratch my tickets at home most of the time now. Do you? I do this so that I will be less likely to chase my losses. The worst case I can remember was spending $40 at a machine, all on the same $5 ticket, and only winning $5, so I lost $35. Granted the next person probably won a good amount, but I had to ask myself was it wise to go back to the bank and get out more money, for a potential winning ticket, or worse yet, 4 more losers in a row? Not only that, someone could have come along and purchased the winner while I was at the bank. The overall odds are just that, overall. Meaning that you could have 50 losers in a row, followed by 10 winners. Likely? No. Possible? Yes!
9)I think gas stations like QuickTrip have the most honest and well trained clerks. That being said, the lotto is not their big thing, and I do not believe it is a part of their business model. They want people in and out as quickly as possible. The lotto there is a convenience for added sales, but not where they make their money. I usually purchase my fuel there or at Sam's Club, due to the price and guarantee. I do not buy very many lotto tickets there though. They don't want someone scratching twenty $1 tickets, and holding up the line. Unfortunately, they have a painfully poor selection of tickets to choose from, so I am sure that most frequent scratchers choose the smaller, individually owned stations, which many happen to be owned by persons of Middle Eastern descent. Nothing wrong with that, it is just an observation.
It would be nice to have a large, well lit, clean store with highly trained clerks, excellent gasoline prices, clean well stocked restrooms, some nice fountain drink choices with good quality hot fresh food, AND a nice lottery selection, but unfortunately, all of those things usually do not happen under one roof. As has been my observation, the larger the lottery selection, the poorer the rest of the store, and the opposite is true. I wish it were possible to buy gas at the same place that I buy lottery tickets, but I would have to pay way too much for gas. I wish I could play the lottery where I buy my gasoline, but they do not have a large enough ticket selection. In all fairness to QT, I have won my single largest prize ever there, $100 on a $1 ticket, but overall, I seem to lose more at QT. They simply need a better selection of tickets.
Now there are a few of my ideas. What do you think? Do you agree or disagree, and why? Am I missing a royal gem of a place somewhere? I would absolutely love to buy my gas and lotto tickets at the same place. Let me hear your ideas. I will post more as it comes to me. I live in the Marietta, GA area, just north of Atlanta. If you live in the area, what is your favorite lotto retailer?