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The $10 Scratch-Off Project!

The project is now completed!

CONCLUSION

If this is the best bet in all of gambling, then I made a rare wise decision by steering clear of “gaming” all my life. I realize this isn’t anything close to a scientific examination of the claim made by that friend o’ my parents. But I have a feeling my results are fairly typical. As suspected, this crap is a sucker’s bet.

Here’s a summary of the results, at the end of the 52 weeks:

Money out: $520
Money in: $250
Final balance: ($270)

Winnings summary:

$50 — 1 or 1.9%
$20 — 6 or 11.5%
$10 — 8 or 15.4%
Didn’t win dick — 37 or 71.2%

Win something — 15 or 28.8%
Win nothing and shout profanity — 37 or 71.2%

So, I didn’t win a thing 7 out of 10 times, and even when I did win it was smallish amounts. If you add the didn’t win dick number with the $10 number (which also doesn’t move the ball forward) it’s 45 out of 52! Or no progress whatsoever 86.6% of the time. Sheesh.

And now I get to think about all the stuff I could buy for $270. Grrr… It’s boolshit. Oh well, the lottery “helps older Pennsylvanians,” they say. Yeah, that doesn’t make me feel any better at all.

UPDATE: Against my better judgment I’ve now launched the $5 Scratch-Off Project. This is how it starts, isn’t it?


A prolific gambler regularly tells my father that the “best bet in all of gambling” is the $10 scratch-off ticket. I’m not a gambler, never have been, but wanted to test the accuracy of that proclamation. So… I’m purchasing one $10 scratch-off every weekend for a year, and posting the results here. I mean, we won’t be able to know if it’s the actual best bet, but after a while we’ll certainly know if it’s a good one. Wish me luck!

Week Number

Date

Money Out

Money In

Balance

1.

January 25, 2021

$10

$20

+ $10

2.

February 1, 2021

$10

$0

Even

3.

February 8, 2021

$10

$0

- $10

4.

February 15, 2021

$10 

$0

- $20

5.

February 22, 2021

$10

$10

- $20

6.

March 1, 2021

$10

$0

- $30

7.

March 8, 2021

$10

$0

- $40

8.

March 15, 2021

$10

$20

- $30

9.

March 22, 2021


$10

$20

- $20

10.

March 29, 2021

$10

$0

- $30

11.

April 5, 2021

$10

$0

- $40

12.

April 12, 2021

$10

$0

- $50

13.

April 19, 2021

$10

$0

- $60

14.

April 26, 2021

$10

$0

- $70

15.

May 3, 2021

$10

$50

- $30

16.

May 10, 2021

$10

$0

- $40

17.

May 17, 2021

$10

$0

- $50

18.

May 24, 2021

$10

$0

- $60

19.

May 31, 2021

$10

$10

- $60

20.

June 7, 2021

$10

$10

- $60

21.

June 14, 2021

$10

$0

- $70

22.

June 21, 2021

$10

$0

- $80

23.

June 28, 2021

$10

$0

- $90

24.

July 5, 2021

$10

$10

- $90

25.

July 12, 2021

$10

$0

- $100

26.

July 19, 2021

$10

$0

- $110

27.

July 26, 2021

$10

$0

- $120

28.

August 2, 2021

$10

$0

- $130

29.

August 9, 2021

$10

$20

- $120

30.

August 16, 2021

$10

$10

- $120

31.

August 23, 2021

$10

$0

- $130

32.

August 30, 2021

$10

$0

- $140

33.

September 6, 2021

$10

$0

- $150

34.

September 13, 2021

$10

$10

- $150

35.

September 20, 2021

$10

$0

- $160

36.

September 27, 2021

$10

$0

- $170

37.

October 4, 2021

$10

$0

- $180

38.

October 11, 2021

$10

$0

- $190

39.

October 18, 2021

$10

$0

- $200

40.

October 25, 2021

$10

$0

- $210

41.

November 1, 2021

$10

$0

- $220

42.

November 8, 2021

$10

$0

- $230

43.

November 15, 2021

$10

$0

- $240

44.

November 22, 2021

$10

$20

- $230

45.

November 29, 2021

$10

$0

- $240

46.

December 6. 2021

$10

$0

- $250

47.

December 13, 2021

$10

$10

- $250

48.

December 20, 2021

$10

$20

- $240

49.

December 27, 2021

$10

$0

- $250

50.

January 3, 2022

$10

$0

- $260

51.

January 10, 2022

$10

$10

- $260

52.

January 17, 2022

$10

$0

- $270

Totals

$520

$250

- $270

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Pete G says

    January 29, 2021 at 1:04 pm

    First? Quit while you’re ahead

    Reply
  2. The Pontificator says

    January 29, 2021 at 1:17 pm

    A fool and his money are soon departed.

    You’d have better luck flipping ammunition.

    Reply
  3. Jeff says

    January 29, 2021 at 1:25 pm

    Negativity! This is a scientific experiment, gentlemen. I’m not gambling, I’m attempting to prove or disprove a hypothesis. See? It’s highbrow.

    Reply
    • Grumpy says

      February 5, 2021 at 11:06 am

      To do a proper experiment, you need a control group. What you need to do is give a random person $10, and have them buy a ticket at the same time. This eliminates your bad luck from the equation.

      In fact, if you sent me $520 right now, I will be able to tell you exactly how bad your luck is.

      Reply
      • kenju says

        March 19, 2021 at 8:30 pm

        Good idea. You send me some $$$ and I’ll guy a few!

        Reply
  4. Kristin says

    January 29, 2021 at 1:25 pm

    Starting off strong
    (Damn, I don’t think I’ve commented here in the past decade! ?)

    Reply
    • Jeff says

      January 29, 2021 at 10:02 pm

      Welcome back, Kristin!

      Reply
  5. Ognir says

    January 29, 2021 at 2:11 pm

    Every Saturday morning I see people lining up to buy those out of a vending machine at Giant Eagle. Some times it is people bringing in buckets of change. They dump the change in the coin machine, get the money, and then buy the tickets. I also see some of the employees there buy tickets every time they go on break or go out to pick up the carts. I don’t see this so much now due to the virus. It was also a regular thing to see really old people lining up at the service desk to get their lottery tickets. I’ve seen them get quite upset if the person behind the counter did not get them what they wanted quickly.

    Reply
    • WBinOH says

      February 21, 2021 at 8:23 pm

      The best thing since sliced bread is the credit card readers at the gas pumps. I used to get so mad going in to pay for my gas and getting stuck behind grandma trying to decide what scratch offs to buy.

      Reply
  6. Greg Tully says

    January 30, 2021 at 1:48 pm

    That’s a good start. I hope he is right. I am not a gambler but I go to meetings for other things. So I would have to be careful also 😉

    Reply
  7. T-storm says

    January 31, 2021 at 8:15 pm

    Hey Flannel Butt, are you buying the same brand of ticket each time or jumping around?

    Reply
    • Jeff says

      February 1, 2021 at 11:34 am

      The arbitrary rules I set up for myself: purchase tickets from a human (not a machine) at the same store where possible, and just go with whatever ticket they hand me. The first two were different. -FB

      Reply
      • Ian in Dundee says

        July 19, 2021 at 2:45 pm

        Hi. That seems a bit narrow. Why not buy them from other, luckier places too?

        Reply
  8. Greg says

    February 2, 2021 at 4:31 pm

    Perhaps you might want to add a ‘balance’ column to show your net profit so far.

    Reply
    • Jeff says

      February 3, 2021 at 12:19 am

      Great idea! Done.

      Reply
  9. TimC says

    February 3, 2021 at 12:05 pm

    “You can’t stop modern science. Can’t stop it. Can’t stop science. Can’t be stopped, no way, no how.”
    – George Costanza

    Reply
  10. Ryan says

    February 3, 2021 at 9:16 pm

    Will this lottery experiment be attached to a weekly email? I will absolutely watch the results of this every week if I get an email about it, but there’s no way I’m going to remember to check in on it otherwise. I’m very curious to see how it goes. I may just try it myself.

    Reply
    • Jeff says

      February 4, 2021 at 1:38 am

      Yes, I’ll make sure it’s linked in the weekly dispatch. Thanks for checking it out!

      Reply
      • Ryan says

        February 6, 2021 at 9:59 pm

        Awesome. I actually started one myself. Week one, I’m down $10, but spirits are still high. I love to gamble, as long as the stakes are very low. I promise not to update you weekly. But I will give you a six month update in August and a final. Assuming I stay with it, which is no small assumption. I hope I do, though – I think it will be super fun on the weeks I scratch off a winner. And every week has the potential to make the whole damn thing a winner. Curious how optimistic I’ll be in a couple of months.

        Reply
        • Jeff says

          February 8, 2021 at 12:39 am

          Keep us updated! And good luck.

          Reply
          • Ryan says

            September 4, 2021 at 6:16 pm

            Said I’d give an update in August, and I almost made it. Prior to the update, I have something to say to just Jeff. As a lifelong Cardinals fan (grew up in central Illinois with a dad that was a Cards fan who had a dad that was a Cards fan, so it was inevitable) this September baseball could be very fun. As far as the central, it’s (don’t think about Bill Withers right now) just the two of us.

            So after 31 weeks, I’m doing better than you, but feeling about the same. Things started off very well, 2/5 (launch day) – 3/18, I was up $70. Since then, I have slowly lost all of that and lost another $40. I’m doing every Friday, and today was a $10 winner (break even) ticket, which was the first time I haven’t scratched a loser since 6/25. That’s NINE weeks in a row scratching losers. Plus $40 to down $50. Demoralizing. I will say that it makes Friday afternoon a little bit more fun, and it was especially fun when I scratched that $100 winner in February.

            Reply
  11. Mark says

    February 8, 2021 at 9:00 am

    I know nothing about scratch-off tickets, so what is the max you can win with a $10 one?

    Reply
    • Jeff says

      February 8, 2021 at 9:20 am

      The one I bought on Saturday had a max prize of $500,000.

      Reply
  12. Limey says

    February 8, 2021 at 9:16 am

    Does the advising “prolific gambler” live in WV rather than, say, Maui? The only prolific gambler I personally know literally sold the family silver he was so good this gambling lark. He knew how to win, how to beat the system, he would endlessly claim.

    Interesting experiment though! Similar with penny stocks would give more data to play with if you’re into that.

    Reply
    • Jeff says

      February 8, 2021 at 11:26 am

      He’s a guy my parents know in Florida. He’s probably gambling in some way right now.

      Reply
  13. Jen says

    March 5, 2021 at 12:07 pm

    Someone gave me one for Christmas. I won’t $100. Turned that in for more tickets, won another $75 and a bunch of free tix I haven’t scratched yet. So far I’ve lost nothing because I didn’t invest anything. Because of this I’m going to invest the winnings into more tickets. Hopefully I can come out ahead.

    Reply
  14. Craig Bersak says

    March 5, 2021 at 2:04 pm

    Does WV Lottery publish the status of it’s scratch off games? NJ does, so you can see which games’ high value prizes have been claimed, and how many prizes remain. If so, you could bias your experiment, by only buying games with a higher population of available prizes.

    Reply
    • Jeff says

      March 5, 2021 at 10:55 pm

      I’m in Pennsylvania, and yeah they do that here too. But I’ve been allowing the cashier at the convenience store to choose for me. So far that hasn’t worked out so well.

      Reply
  15. jeff in SW Ontario says

    April 16, 2021 at 11:11 pm

    I’m gonna guess that after 52 weeks you will be down about $260.
    If I had to bet on the over under, I would bet $10 that you will be worse off than that.

    Reply
    • Jeff says

      April 18, 2021 at 12:16 am

      It’s not going well. But we’re still early in the process. I still have (dwindling) faith.

      Reply
      • Grape Ape says

        April 23, 2021 at 3:47 pm

        Just one more ticket and it will all turn around! 😉

        Reply
        • Jeff says

          April 24, 2021 at 10:51 pm

          Haha. Exactly.

          Reply
    • jeff in SW Ontario says

      July 18, 2021 at 4:12 pm

      Well, after 1/2 a year, you are doing $20 better than I expected.
      Better meaning less bad, a difference of degree, not direction.
      Still, good luck

      Reply
      • Jeff in SW Ontario says

        October 25, 2021 at 5:05 pm

        You’re going to hit -260 easy at this rate

        Reply
        • jeff in SW Ontario says

          January 11, 2022 at 5:56 pm

          Oooh, it’s gonna be close, one more week

          Reply
          • jeff in SW Ontario says

            January 17, 2022 at 11:02 pm

            I gotta say, I nailed that call. Too bad for me you didn’t take me up on the over/under.

            Reply
  16. Grape Ape says

    May 7, 2021 at 1:27 pm

    Winner Winner
    Chicken Dinner!

    Reply
  17. Jason says

    May 17, 2021 at 12:19 pm

    There’s a big win coming up – I can feel it.

    Reply
  18. Jason Yepma says

    August 7, 2021 at 3:21 pm

    That’s a month of $0’s WE GOTTA TURN THIS FRANCHISE AROUND!

    Reply
  19. W.A. says

    December 23, 2021 at 10:16 am

    I’ve got a good feeling about this.

    Reply
  20. popecosgrove says

    January 17, 2022 at 12:10 pm

    The site was down for a couple days there, so naturally I assumed Jeff had won the grand prize and gone off grid. Prolly living with Nancy, since she knows all about off-grid living

    Reply
  21. Limey says

    January 17, 2022 at 3:01 pm

    I would imagine a $270 spree in the beer store and learn my lesson!

    Reply

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