Scratch Off Odds: How to Increase Your Probability of a Win

[00:03] $400 400 $400 the biggest one was for probability in real life but in this video I'm going to show you how to use math to increase your probability of winning scratch off tickets Joan Ginther

[00:19] is famous for winning multi-million dollar payouts four times on scratch off tickets that kind of luck happens once every quadrillion years to give you an idea of how big a quadrillion is one quadrillion seconds was

[00:35] 31,700 th700 years ago but Jan's WIS weren't th700 years ago but Jan's WIS weren't luck she has a PHD in math from Stanford that gave her an advantage and later in the video I'll show you how she did it a

[00:50] the video I'll show you how she did it a guy called Mohan Shava discovered in 2003 the winning tickets had a numerical pattern part of it was in stats so much as sleuthing about looking for patterns in the cards the secret he uncovered was

[01:06] that winning scratch offs had a certain numerical pattern to them by using math he figured out what cards were more likely to win he estimated he could make $600 a day from his trick but that was a lot less than he could make as a

[01:21] statistician these aren't the only people to gain the system there are many other hacks as well as numerical patterns on the cards there are a slew of tips and tricks on the internet like white lines on cards calculating odds

[01:37] and expective value buying in bulk playing the more expensive cards but which ones work and which ones don't I listed the help with some friends to analyze the winning tickets we figured out which tips and tricks worked and

[01:52] which did not to make this experiment scientifically sound I used a statistical test but don't worry I'm not going to show you the steps for the test but I will share the results I'll also show you the only technique that

[02:07] guarantees you'll win [Music] something let's start with some Basics scratch off tickets range from a doar to

[02:24] $30 they're deliberately made attractive and shiny to sell more you can play crosswords games like Monopoly or scratch off gold coins or dollar signs but not all scratch cards are created equal Don't Play Shiny or fun because

[02:40] the more expensive cards have better odds some cards have zero prizes left in odds some cards have zero prizes left in fact at any time around 10% of cards

[02:52] have no prizes left at all you don't want to play those games this money multiplier costs $5 if it states on it the top prize is $500,000 but you have a zero chance of winning the top prize because they've

[03:07] already been won it's perfectly legal to keep on selling the tickets after all the prizes have been won so do a little research before you buy a ticket go to any state lottery website and see which tickets have zero prizes left so

[03:23] assuming you've looked at your state lottery website and found the cards that you shouldn't be playing let's delve into the techniques that you can use to improve your [Music]

[03:41] odds let's answer the question do winning cards look different Mohan Sher starver trick was to note how many times numbers appeared on Tic Tac Toe cards

[03:53] Tic Tac Toe cards with single numbers were more likely to win cards with repeated pattern said fewer winners unfortunately that numbering pattern is no more there also used to be codes printed on the tickets to let you know

[04:09] printed on the tickets to let you know what you'd want for example o n for one what you'd want for example o n for one or fty for 50 however these cards have been discontinued in our search for truth we sorted through this pile of

[04:22] winners we looked for markers like white lines or numerical patterns we collected our data and ran a hypothesis test were the differences random or were those

[04:34] differences statistically significant the result of our test was that any imperfections were likely due to random imperfections during production let's say your card does look different say it has a white line on it it's just a

[04:49] random event but let's say we're wrong and you crack the secret code and figure out the winners do look different you can't see the card you're buying because they're on a roll the conclusion winning cards don't look different and even if

[05:04] they do it won't up your odds of winning the next tip increases your odds a little bit buy groups of cards say 10 in a row of the same game you can even buy an entire roll of cards they're not actually on rolls they're kind of flat

[05:21] this might cost you several hundred or more but there's actually some very good science behind this tip scratch off ticket prizes on are not random winners tend to be evenly spaced throughout the roles the manufacturer has a certain

[05:36] dollar amount say a million dollars that they have to dispense throughout the game if they printed the prizes in a truly random fashion they could award tens of millions of dollars just by random chance they have to limit the

[05:51] number of winning cards to a set amount they might have to award 250 winners in every th000 card run there will be some Randomness but not every fourth or fifth card is going to be a winner you can increase your odds of winning by buying

[06:07] 10 at a time but it's not a guarantee of a win I bought 10 in a row and they were all losers there's another good reason for buying cards from the same game the probability of winning increases every time you buy cards from the same game

[06:24] imagine there's a million tickets in a game with one big prize if you bought 10 tickets your odds of winning are one in 100,000 if you bought 100 tickets your

[06:38] 100,000 if you bought 100 tickets your odds increase to 1 in 10,000 buy 1,000 odds increase to 1 in 10,000 buy 1,000 tickets and you have 1 in 1,000 chance of winning this is the logic that Joan Gunther used to win her Millions however

[06:52] Gunther used to win her Millions however she didn't buy 10 in a row or even a thousand experts estimate she purchased $80,000 tickets worth $2 million or more

[07:04] but she did win $15 million so it's not a bad investment I'm assuming you don't have $2 million to plump down on cards so you can use another of Miss Gunther's checks she also played cards with higher expected value expected value is kind of

[07:21] like an average the calculation is the total amount of remaining prizes divided by the total amount of money in it will cost to buy all the remaining tickets to

[07:33] explain how it works let's look at a specific card fastest road to a million has about 8 million tickets remaining at has about 8 million tickets remaining at $30 per ticket it would cost just over

[07:48] $241 million to buy all the cards that are left divide the remaining prizes by the cost of buy and you get about 82% if you were to spend

[08:00] $241 million on buying all the remaining tickets you'd only get back 82% of your money you'd lose 18% of it that's actually pretty good odds for scratch offs some tickets have an expected value

[08:15] offs some tickets have an expected value as low as 40% you'll have a much bigger chance of a win if you play tickets with a higher expected value overall the vast majority of people that play scratch off tickets will lose 70% % of their money

[08:31] the odds are heavily stacked against you and heavily stacked in favor of the state's gaining a lot of money they keep about 30% of the $60 billion spent on

[08:43] about 30% of the $60 billion spent on lotteries every year so back to that statistician who had a pretty good trick for finding winning tickets he had some wise words for scratch off ticket players in an NPR interview he said he

[08:57] didn't think anyone could make a living of of scratch off tickets so if scratch of of scratch off tickets so if scratch off tickets are your hobby then enjoy but if you're in it to win big then you might want to play a game with better

[09:13] odds all right all right so what what did we win I won about 85 oh my God yes uh I've got $54 and would not have broke even they would have cost me 63 to buy

[09:28] even they would have cost me 63 to buy them wow are you the big winner oh my gosh $13 worth out of

[09:41] $63 worth of tickets but I scratched a whole lot more oh gosh we whole lot more oh gosh we scratch oh so oh my gosh I mean I'm in the hole like $400 400

[09:56] $400 was for $50 one big one and we didn't get any I was kind of split my wins but get that was like okay this is like really sad I'm like

[10:12] going to split split the winnings and I'm getting the cards I'm getting the cards back