Can You Really Win Playing Online Scratch Cards?

Understanding How Odds Work

If we look at scratch cards from a purely mathematical point of view, then your odds of winning are going to be pretty small. In fact, if you bought up all the scratch card tickets in a particular series, you would still lose. This is because the grand prize would be smaller than your total spend. The odds are always going to be stacked against you. However, if you read the small print, you'll see that all scratch card operators are perfectly honest about the odds and the payouts. Obviously, the scratch card industry needs to make a profit and technically speaking, their profit is going to be your loss.

An Explanation of Probability

We can use the simple coin toss to help explain the probability. There any two choices, either heads or tails, and there is a 0.5 or 50% probability of one landing. This translates to your odds being 1 in 2. In other words, you have an equal 50% chance of winning or losing. Following on from this, if your risk is 50% then your reward should be at least 2 to 1, simply because your risk is 1 in 2. However, when it comes to scratch cards, they make their money thanks to the odds being stacked against you.

Risk vs Reward in Scratch Card Games

Imagine you are playing a national scratch card game from an operator that prints 5 million tickets. Let us suppose that only one ticket is the grand prize. This means the odds of you picking the winning ticket are 1 in 5 million. Suppose as an example, the National Lottery prints 5 million scratch card tickets. If you win then your payout in this example is only £1 million. To put it in the most long-winded manner, you're taking a much greater risk, than the reward available for taking a risk in the first place.

This is what's known as “negative expectancy” in mathematics. It's the foundation upon which the city of Las Vegas was built. It's also the principal behind every lottery and scratch card ticket competition.

So if the odds are so stacked against us, why do we continue to play? There are a number of cognitive biases and psychological tendencies that makes scratch cards and lotteries so attractive. The main ones are as follows:

An Incorrect Understanding of Risk and Reward

If you were to look at scratch cards with a logical mind, then you should be looking for the expected return. This means that you should take the probability and the magnitude of the reward or loss into account. Yet the vast majority of scratch cards players only focus on the reward potential and therefore ignore the probability of losing. Because the ticket prices are relatively small, then players see the potential loss as no big deal. On the other hand, they see the potential gains as massive. This makes the gamble very attractive.

In truth, the expected return will always be negative, with the player losing money every time they play. This point is illustrated by asking people if they would buy a lottery ticket that cost $1,000 or 10,000 times more, but with the reward increased proportionally. Most would quickly say no, yet the distinction between ticket prices is meaningless as the odds remain exactly the same.

Over-Optimism and the Illusion of Control

Because buying lottery tickets is what's known as a “planned action,” it leads people to be over-optimistic about the outcomes, simply because they made the initial decision to purchase the scratch card in the first place. There's a certain amount of gamification in many of today's scratch card lotteries. This means that the buyer needs to perform some sort of action, such as picking the numbers or choosing which boxes to scratch on the ticket. By dint of this, many players are led to believe that these actions can influence the outcome.

Association and Pavlovian Conditioning

When you look at advertisements for scratch cards, you’ll notice they always show how much life is better thanks to winning. The media love stories of winners and we can see how happy and excited they are when they are interviewed on television. However, we never hear about all those who lost or how much they have lost in aggregate. Psychologically, we associate lotteries with winning. This works to such a degree that when many people think about scratch cards, they think of the carefree lifestyle that comes from winning.

Consistency and Sunk Costs

It's human nature, that once we have made a decision, we tend to stick with it. The same goes for buying scratch card tickets. Many players are irrationally concerned that if they suddenly stopped playing, then they may miss a winning possibility. There's also the feeling that the spending on past tickets is a sunk cost. Rather like some sort of investment. The more they play, then the harder it's going to be to stop.

Many players are under the illusion that every extra ticket you buy doubles your chance of winning. For instance, if you were playing a scratch card game where the odds of winning are 1 in 1 million, then the odds of a second ticket would still remain the same. In fact, if you were to buy up half the possible scratch card combination tickets (500,000) then you still wouldn't have a 50% chance of winning.

Remain Realistic

The internet is overflowing with theories of how you can be successful and win at scratch cards. Unfortunately, much of the advice is missing both logic and an understanding of basic mathematics. Though this it sounds like a downer, your best approach is to remain realistic. Understand that your odds of winning are so tiny that you're almost assured to lose your money.

Don’t Forget to Have Fun

To that end, it makes perfect sense to lose as little as possible. We suggest that you don't play scratch cards with the thought of striking it rich. It's much better to enjoy the fun and anticipation that comes from scratching off the foil that covers the numbers. And though it's perfectly true that someone has to win, it's important that you keep your hopes and dreams of untold wealth in check. Just enjoy the moment! In fact, this advice should apply to all forms of online gambling. Remember to play for the joy of playing and not the hope of winning, and you can be sure of always having a good time.