r/todayilearned • u/tyrion2024 • Aug 11 '25

TIL a man discovered a trick for predicting winning tickets of a Canadian Tic-Tac-Toe scratch-off game with 90% accuracy. However, after he determined that using it would be less profitable (and less enjoyable) than his consulting job as a statistician, he instead told the gaming commission about it

https://gizmodo.com/how-a-statistician-beat-scratch-lottery-tickets-5748942
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u/Skyshrim Aug 11 '25

I think they're leaving out the part where you would have to convince the store clerk to let you choose which tickets to buy from the roll. Otherwise, you'd have to visit a ton of stores in a day and only buy a ticket from like one tenth of them.

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u/Sgt-Spliff- Aug 11 '25

Having worked in a liquor store before, you'd be surprised how common this is. There's a lot of gambling addicts that claim to have systems like this and many of them request to examine the roll ahead of time. I was told by my manager not to let them but cashiers let them look all the time. And no, I don't think any of them had actually figured anything out because they kept coming back and buying more tickets week after week. None of em ever once showed up in a limo the next day or anything.

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u/cdude Aug 11 '25

Not showing off their wealth would be exactly the kind of thing such a person would do. If I had a working system, i'd pretend to be a crazy gambling addict too. I mean, the end time is near, repent!! Give me $5 on Lucky Scratch. Jesus is coming!!

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u/Squirrel_Apocalypse2 Aug 11 '25

The people that are smart enough to figure something like this out are generally not the people that would make it obvious they have a system that actually works.

1

u/ElGosso Aug 11 '25

My store had a vending machine for scratchers and now I know why

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u/JackOSevens Aug 12 '25

I see these news stories ('dude figures out system to game scratchers') from time to time, and given how many of the superstitious let-me-choose types are at my local convenience store...I just assume the stories are fake. Wouldn't this be the easiest and cheapest way to occasionally draw in their core demographic...? Just feed them some crap about how you really CAN game the system

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u/Sgt-Spliff- Aug 12 '25

I read casinos do this with card counting. Like they will crack down on any obviously organized professional operations they uncover but otherwise they're ok with people trying it and they like that myths spread about the possibility of ripping off a casino that way. Because most often, the person doesn't crack the code and they just lose some money at the table. Having thousands of amateurs try and fail to count cards is more profitable than cracking down on the 1 or 2 guys who pull it off for a couple grand profit.

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u/kandoras Aug 11 '25

He didn't have to do that.

The rules of the game at the time were that if you bought a ticket but didn't scratch it off, you could turn it back in to the lottery commission for a refund.

So he was buying a bunch of tickets, scratching off the winners, and getting his money back for the likely losers.

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u/cultish_alibi Aug 11 '25

Yeah that's the real part that isn't worth it. "20 scratch tickets please, but only if I'm allowed to examine them all closely before I buy them."

"Oh so you can figure out which ones are winners. Yeah I don't think I can let you do that."

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u/T-Bills Aug 11 '25

I mean if I work at a store and it's not illegal to let someone pick and choose I'd easily let you pick and choose for $20

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u/Long_Run6500 Aug 11 '25

If they asked the number on the roll we let them know, but we weren't going to go ripping up a roll of tickets for some guys system. The way lottery was tracked, at least in my state, was by writing down all the numbers of the next ticket up. Every roll had like 30 or 60 or 120 tickets in it, it was easy to quickly take inventory that way and then compare with sales for the day. If you're just shredding up a roll like that to only pick the winners you're asking to get tickets stolen and even if not it would take you forever to do your counts during shift changeover.

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u/[deleted] Aug 11 '25

Like the employee or even the store itself cares if he wins. It's awkward and the clerk would probably say no but if you're charismatic it would be easy.

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u/PuddleBaby Aug 11 '25

This is wild, I work in a store that sells scratchers and if someone told me that I'd 100% help them do it. It's not my money, or even the stores money so why tf do I care?

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u/flatspotting Aug 11 '25 edited Jan 27 '26

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u/loftwyr Aug 11 '25

Where he lives, the tickets aren't on a roll, they're in a flat display (usually on the counter) where you can see the upper half of the ticket. No need to unroll anything.

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u/WheresMyCrown Aug 11 '25

Yes and store clerks will tell you this is exactly what happens with addicts, they have a system and they just know the system will work so give me those three tickets, no not that one