---
title: 'How to Pick a Scratch Off in 3 Simple Steps'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=Sfw8Ow7bUwM'
video_id: 'Sfw8Ow7bUwM'
date: 2026-07-15
duration_sec: 467
---

# How to Pick a Scratch Off in 3 Simple Steps

> Source: [How to Pick a Scratch Off in 3 Simple Steps](https://youtube.com/watch?v=Sfw8Ow7bUwM)

## Summary

This video presents a three-step strategy for selecting scratch-off lottery tickets to maximize winning chances. The speaker emphasizes avoiding impulse buys and instead using data-driven decisions based on budget, target prize, and current odds.

### Key Points

- **Scratch-offs are the biggest lottery game** [00:02] — Scratch-offs make up about 65% of total lottery sales. They are impulse buys with immediate results.
- **Step 1: Determine your budget** [00:45] — Decide how much you will spend (e.g., $20). Higher-priced tickets generally offer better odds.
- **Step 2: Decide which prize to chase** [01:29] — Target a specific prize amount (e.g., $10,000) rather than just 'winning'. Different games have different odds for different prizes.
- **Step 3: Pick the best game using current odds** [03:03] — Use Lotto Edge to filter by state, price, and ranking for best odds to hit your target prize. Check prize claims to see if a prize is due.
- **Example analysis of a $20 game** [04:44] — Original odds for $10,000 prize: 1 in 115,000. Current odds improved to 1 in 108,000. 54 days since last claim, estimated 170,000 tickets sold, suggesting prize is due.
- **Backup game selection** [05:51] — Another $20 game with original odds 1 in 122,000, current odds slightly worse. 12 days since last claim, 112,000 tickets sold, close to stated odds.
- **Final advice** [07:05] — Don't impulse buy. Spend 30 seconds researching which game has best odds for your target prize. Mix up target prizes to play different games.

### Conclusion

By following three simple steps—setting a budget, choosing a target prize, and using current odds data—you can significantly improve your chances of winning on scratch-off tickets.

## Transcript

here at Lotto Edge scratch-offs are the biggest selling Lottery game year after year on average they make up around 65 of total lottery sales they're a great impulse buy and you know immediately if you've won instead of having to wait for
the next draw time but buying on impulse are not taking a minute to plan which game to buy puts you at a huge disadvantage you might be picking a game where all the top prizes are sold out or maybe a great prize in that game was
just hit yesterday so obviously you aren't going to win every time you play the lottery but it's really important to play the games that give you the best chances of winning so today I'm gonna break down three simple steps to help
you pick the perfect scratch off to play Let's Dive In Step One determine how much you are going to spend are you playing one dollar today or maybe thirty dollars know how much you're planning to spend because that will determine the
ticket you're going to buy typically the higher priced tickets are going to give you better odds of winning so knowing your budget will help you narrow down the games to play so for today let's assume we're planning to spend 20 on
scratch-offs now that could be one twenty dollar ticket it could be four or five dollar tickets or two ten dollar tickets we're gonna let the game with gonna play all right step two this is the step most
all right step two this is the step most people skip decide which Prize or prizes you're chasing so you might be thinking and something we hear the most often is I don't care I just want to win and taking that approach is fine however
most players aren't trying to win a free ticket or a break even prize they want to hit something bigger than the price of the ticket like a real feeling of winning and also not everyone is chasing the same prizes you know there are
players out there that only want to hit let's say million dollar prizes and up and these prizes are really hard to hit and it's okay to chase those prizes on occasion but I encourage you to be realistic wait to chase those Mega
prizes for when the odds are really in your favor and a prize is due to hit your favor and a prize is due to hit plus when winning 500 today feel awesome what about like hitting ten thousand dollars and these prizes are more likely
to hit than a million dollar prize so mix up your playing style and try games mix up your playing style and try games by targeting different prizes and as you pick different prizes at Target you're gonna end up playing different games but
you always want to be playing the games that give you the best odds to hit the prize you're chasing so for today let's assume we're gonna play games that give us the best shot at hitting a ten thousand dollar prize now maybe next
today we're going to look for games with ten thousand dollar prizes kind of like dollar winner this is what we're after all right this brings us to step three
here is where we're gonna pick the best game to play now we're gonna find the game with the best odds to hit our ten thousand dollar prize and believe me the odds can be significantly different from game to game and so we know we're
planning to play twenty dollars a day and we're gonna Target prizes of ten thousand dollars now it's time to find the game with the best current odds to win that prize now the current odds are the odds as of today versus the odds at
the start of the game now those odds as of today may have improved by a lot or maybe those odds have gotten worse since the start of the game this is why we want to look at the current odds to win those prizes so the current odds are
based on estimated ticket sales and how many prizes are left and the current odds can also vary greatly from those original odds especially if that prize hasn't been hit in a while so using Lotto wage we're going to filter on our
state and here I'm going to filter on New Jersey and I'm not going to filter a the tickets that are available and decide which one game will have the best for me in my 20 price point now I could
dollar tickets I could do that or I could filter on 10 or 20 but again I'm going to leave no price filter on here and then I'm going to select the ranking for me and I I know down here there's a ranking for the best odds to hit ten
thousand dollar prizes okay so when I start here I take a look and I right away this first game is thirty dollars out of my price range I'm gonna skip so I go to my next game and this 20 game is in my budget my I can buy one ticket
for this one let me go ahead and just take a look at the prize odds here and I can see the ten thousand dollar had a original odds of about one in a hundred and fifteen thousand currently the odds have improved and they're about one in a
hundred and eight thousand so they've gotten better but I want to check one more thing I'm gonna go look at prize claims and why I'm gonna do that is I'm gonna see this ten thousand dollar prize it's been 54 days since the last claim
it's been 54 days since the last claim not as important as here this tells me an estimate of how many tickets were estimated to be sold since that last claim as well as what the stated odds are and I see that this looks like it's
pretty oversold and may be due to hit that ten thousand dollar prize soon because we've sold an estimated about a hundred and seventy thousand tickets and the odds were stated to be about a hundred and fifteen thousand so this is
a game that I'm gonna a play today if I'm spending twenty dollars and targeting ten thousand dollar prize let me look at one more game here just to again I got another twenty dollar ticket in case my first ticket wasn't available
I want to have a backup one here I'm gonna take a look here and see the odds on my ten thousand dollar prize let's say they started at 122 000. they gotten a little bit worse but these are the second best overall odds to hit ten
at my price claims again just in case here and it's been about 12 days since and I see it's about 112 000 tickets have been sold with a stated odds of 122
000. so pretty close one thing to remember here don't take this stated odds as gospel meaning is you're not looking for the tickets sold to hit right at 122 000 tickets these prizes are gonna hit sometimes early sometimes
way early and sometimes they go over where you're kind of looking is if you saw one that was really overdue or maybe it looks due to hit this one it looks pretty close if it was staying close to the stated odds this
prize here also looks due to hit so right away I have two tickets that I'm targeting in the store for my twenty dollars with the best odds to hit ten thousand dollars all right so again when you're going out to pick a ticket don't
just randomly pick a ticket don't make it an Impulse buy take the 30 seconds it takes to know how much you're spending and do a little research look which game has the best odds to hit the prizes you're after and when it comes to
picking which price of the chase pick a random one what do you feel lucky for today 500 or maybe try something different the cool thing is is whatever you're ranking you're looking at you're gonna get recommended a different game
because different games have the best odds to hit different prizes so all have questions drop us a note at lottoedge.com we're happy to help thanks lottoedge.com we're happy to help thanks for tuning in