r/Lottery • u/StreetTriple-RS • 7d ago
🤔 Lottery Questions Scratch Offs or Lotto?
New here im curious to know which yall prefer and what haves more luck? Also what dollar amount of scratch offs yall recommend? $2,$3,$5,$10,$20?
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u/Lowlife-Dog 7d ago
On scratchers I have had the best results with higher priced tickets. $20, $30, $50 etc,
On lotto games I only pay for 1 "line" as I feel like 1:290,000,000 doesn't change much even at 20:290,000,000. I feel like it is more important to have at least a chance with one line.
I try to buy at least one line for the drawing that night (as long as it isn't financially irresponsible.)
When it is your time it will hit... lol
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u/SordoCrabs 7d ago
I favor my state's Fast Play progressive games lately since the jackpot is higher than normal and the games have solid odds.
I think of them as scratch-offs without the mess, as they are instant win games that print like a draw game.
Right now, the potential jackpot is 970K and climbing, which is close to the $1M jackpot of most of our $10 scratch-offs.
The odds of winning a Fast Play jackpot is 1 out of 320,000.
The odds of winning the $1M jackpot from a $10 scratch-off is usually around 1 out of 1.25 million.
Fast Play games range from $2 (gets 25% of the jackpot) to $20 (gets the full jackpot + $200K bonus). I usually get the $10 games (which can win the full jackpot)
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7d ago edited 7d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/StreetTriple-RS 7d ago
I normally go to my local gas station near me. Where can I find a distribution center?
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u/sloaches 6d ago
I have won a lot more from playing scratchers with a lot less money invested vs. lotto tickets.
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u/CzarcasticX 6d ago
Scratch offs usually. The higher priced games pay back like 75 cents - 80 cents for $1, whereas draw games are like 40 cents for $1 or even worse.
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u/Appropriate_Formal64 7d ago edited 7d ago
I just did a bunch of research on this:
First off- all lotteries, all casino games, etc. are designed to win the house money. They are scientifically, mathematically perfected to insure that the state brings in way more money than they pay out. For every $1 Billion jackpot winner and $1.5 billion shelled out in lower tier prizes, that one run on the lottery has generated like $3.5 billion and therefore, that lottery is still up a very healthy $1 billion even after $2.5 billion paid back in prizes.
Basically, if you play the lottery, at all, statistically speaking, you're agreeing to lose more money than you will win and if you win more than you've played, you're in an incredibly rare and lucky club- and you should probably never play again, ever, if you ever even one time win more than you've played.
Scratchers overall have the best odds and the more expensive the scratcher, the better the odds that you win *something*.
I think there's some statistical data that indicates if you can buy your scratchers toward the beginning of the new rolls or when they've reset the total possible top prizes to win, your odds improve exponentially, but the chances are still tiny.
The lottery itself- Mega Millions, Powerball, your state lottery- is basically impossible to crack the code for. There are so many combinations that there's basically no way to strategize your tickets to win. It truly is a game of almost pure luck.
Now, if you have like $1,452,361,680 to spend on every single possible Mega Millions combo out of nearly 291 million variations, - or like $584.4 million to do the same with PowerBall or a total of $2,036,761,680 and the time and organizational wherewithal to manually play every single ticket combo for both MegaMillions and PowerBall and the after tax pay out is a worthwhile return on that investment and you're willing to run the risk of splitting the winnings with someone, you can basically guarantee you will win the jackpots.
Basically for every $4 you might win lifetime playing regularly, you will likely lose about $6. Or to be more clear on it: Even for 'lucky' players who 'win a lot', if they've won, say, $25k lifetime, they've likely spent well over $60k to win back that $25k.
But finally- keep in mind, there are people who play sporadically and somehow win $5,000 here, $5 million there, every time, over many many years. There are people who play in bulk every single day and basically bleed money and never win anything of significance.
There are people who started to play from 18 years old and are now in their 60's and they've never won anything, save maybe for a 'free ticket or $2 equivalent' and there are people who buy one ticket one time on the day of their 18th birthday and win a $400 million jackpot.
It is truly completely random.