You’re at the convenience store.

You look up.

Above you, there are dozens of winning scratch tickets. Some have won just twenty bucks, but others have won thousands. So, reaching into your wallet, you pull out a few crisp bills and ask the clerk for a ticket of your own.

Stop!!!!

Before you spend money on scratch off tickets, there are a few things you need to know. In this article, we’ll talk about:

• How to win at scratch tickets
• Whether there are strategies you can use to increase your chances
• How to determine your odds of winning

Are you ready? Let’s talk about scratch off tickets, and how to improve your odds of winning big.

1. Know what the prizes are.

The first thing you’ll need to do before you buy any scratch cards is to know what the prizes are! Most scratch cards will state this right on the card. For example, your ticket might say, “Top Prize $10,000!”

But there’s more to it than that. The top prize is, of course, just one prize you could potentially win from a scratch card. There are plenty more, and those prizes are listed on the back of the card.

Most store clerks will let you peek at the back of the card before you buy it. If your clerk doesn’t, however, you can usually find this information online. In a little chart, you’ll see the list of prizes and your odds of winning those prizes. Look that over carefully before you buy your scratch off card.

• Before you buy a scratch ticket, you should look at the list of prizes
• The top prize isn’t the only prize you can win
• The odds of winning each prize are listed on the back of your scratch card

2. Decide how much you want to spend per ticket.

Scratch tickets can range in price anywhere from a dollar to a hundred. And, generally speaking, as the price of the card increases, so does the potential prize you can earn.

To put it another way, if you buy a one dollar card, you could win, say, $5,000. But if you splurge on a $50 card your prize could be as much as a million dollars.

Check your card for the odds of winning, and determine how much money you’d like to spend. Weigh that against your potential earnings, but remember that winning isn’t guaranteed!

• You should know how much you want to spend before you buy
• Scratch cards range from $1 to $100 or more
• Usually, higher priced cards offer bigger potential prizes

3. Check your local lottery site online.

Here’s where it gets interesting. Let’s say you have five bucks to spend, but you’re not sure which card to buy. Head to the internet to find your local lottery site.

If you’re in the United States, your lottery will usually have its own website. In, for instance, the UK, there’s a National Lottery website. Wherever you are, find your local webpage. On that website you’ll see a list of the scratch cards available. Find a few in your price range and click for details.

Not only will you see the odds of winning that particular contest but you’ll also see how many people have already won. For example, if there are 100 prizes of $2 but 46 people have already won that prize, your odds will decrease.

• You should be able to find your local lottery’s website online
• On that site, you’ll find all the contests listed
• You can see how many people have already won a certain prize by checking online

4. Compare your odds of winning.

So, as we mentioned, you’ve got five bucks to spend, right? You can choose between two different tickets. But which one should you buy?

While you’re online, compare the odds of winning. Let’s say one ticket has already had 500 winners out of a possible 1,000. The other game has had just 300 winners out of 1,000.

You have better odds of winning with the second ticket, so you may choose to buy that one.

• Decide how much money you’ve got to spend so you can research your scratch cards
• Find out how many prizes there are, and how many have been awarded
• Compare your odds of winning and choose the card with the best odds.

5. Check the availability of the grand prize.

In some cases, it may not be smart to just choose the card with the best odds of winning. Keep this in mind: if the grand prize has been claimed, you have zero chance of winning it.

Before you buy any scratch off tickets, check to see if the grand prize is still available. If someone’s already claimed the grand prize, you might want to consider choosing a different card.

• If the grand prize is already claimed, you can’t win it
• Check the availability of the big prizes before you buy a ticket
• If the large prizes are gone, choose a different game

6. Talk to the clerk.

In every roll of scratch cards, there are a few guaranteed winners. However, the odds of two winning cards being sold back to back are very slim.

Talk to the store clerk and ask which cards win the most often. Then, buy a different card. If there’s a roll of cards that’s a frequent winner, there’s a good chance that roll has no more winners.

There is one exception to that. If there’s a frequent winner and the clerk has just installed a new roll, go ahead and buy one! The chances “restart” when a new roll is installed.

• There are a guaranteed number of winners per scratch ticket roll
• If there’s a roll that’s already awarded many prizes, choose another roll
• If there’s a new roll on the rack, go ahead and buy!

7. Buy consecutive tickets.

They say that lightning doesn’t strike in the same place twice. Well, that may or may not be true, but the odds of being struck twice by lightning are about the same as you buying two lottery tickets in a row. So what should you do with that information?

First, you could hang out at the store and wait for someone to lose on a scratch off ticket. That increases your odds that the next ticket is a winner.

Or, you could take a kinder approach and just buy several, consecutive tickets. Instead of buying one five dollar ticket, buy five one dollar tickets! The odds that you’ll buy a winner are greater that way.

• Winning tickets are rarely sold consecutively
• To increase your odds of winning, buy more than one ticket
• You can wait until someone buys a “loser” then buy from the same roll to improve your odds

8. Always have the store clerk check your tickets.

In some locations, it’s illegal to scratch off your tickets in the store. That’s okay. Go outside, scratch off your card, and check to see if you’ve won. If you’ve won, great! Go on back inside and collect your winnings!

If you have not won, you should still go back in the store. Have the clerk scan your ticket just to make sure. There are some scratch off cards that can be confusing and you don’t want to overlook any winnings! Some stores have a scanner right there at the counter. Otherwise, hand your card to the clerk and have him verify.

• Never assume a card is a loser until the clerk scans it
• Some scratch cards are confusing, so it’s better to be safe than sorry!
• A bar code scanner is more reliable than trying to read lottery cards sometimes

9. Save your “losing” tickets.

In most places in the world, there’s a rule: stores must stop selling scratch cards once all the top prizes have been claimed.

We like that rule, and you should too! Because it means a second chance for you to win big. The smaller prizes that have not been claimed are set aside into a pool. The unsold cards are destroyed. And a second chance lottery is held.

In a second chance lottery, you’ll have the opportunity to send in your “losing” scratch cards for a second chance to win those earnings that have been unclaimed. The prizes may be in the form of cash or even gifts and new cars. Your local lottery will tell you the odds when the lottery is announced.

Don’t throw away your old cards! Instead, be sure you submit them to a second chance lottery. Your chances of winning big in a second chance lottery are much higher than in the original lottery itself.

• Don’t throw away your old scratch tickets – you could still win!
• Stores can’t sell cards once the big prizes have been claimed
• Remaining prizes are distributed through a second chance lottery

10. Don’t overthink second chance lotteries.

Don’t get us wrong – we love the idea of a second chance lottery. In most cases, you can see whether a ticket is a second chance game just by looking at the ticket, so when you can, opt to buy those.

However, it’s not usually smart to buy a second chance-eligible ticket on the off chance you might win a second chance lottery. The odds are more in favor of someone actually winning the “big prize” than on you winning the second chance lottery.

• Second chance scratch tickets are easy to identify.
• Choose second chance tickets if you’ve checked that there are still available prizes
• Don’t buy a second chance ticket just because you might win the second chance drawing

11. Sign up for an account with your local lottery online.

There’s little more annoying than having your drawer, your purse or your car cluttered with “losing” lottery tickets. As soon as you’re able, find out if you can just enter those lottery tickets into second chance drawings online.

Sign up for an account with your local lottery organization. Most places around the world that hold lotteries offer this opportunity. Some even have apps you can install on your cell phone or tablet!

Once you’re registered for an account, simply enter or scan your tickets to your account as soon as you purchase them. Then, in most cases, you can just toss your tickets in the trash. Check with your local rules, as in some jurisdictions you’ve got to be holding the winning ticket to claim your prize.

In addition to simply making your life easier, signing up for an online lottery account offers other opportunities to win. Some locations allow you to enter your tickets to earn points. Using those points, you can enter other contests in addition to the scratch off game!

• Most locations offer the opportunity to register for an online account – do it!
• You can enter your old tickets, then can usually just toss them in the trash.
• Online accounts also offer additional contests you can enter for free.

12. Consider playing just one scratch card game.

Without getting too mathematical, let’s talk about odds of winning for a moment. Let’s say, just for argument’s sake, there’s a game for which a thousand tickets have been printed. You buy a hundred of those. You then have a 10% chance of winning the Big Prize.

Now, say there are four games, which have also had a thousand tickets printed. You buy 25 tickets from each game. Your odds have just been reduced to 2.5% chance that you’ll win any one of those games.

Consider choosing a scratch card game you think is fun and that is within your budget and stick with it. Each time you play the lottery, choose that card until you see that all the big prizes have been awarded. Doing so can dramatically increase your odds of winning on scratch cards.

• When you stick to one game, your odds of winning increase
• Be sure that game is within your budget
• Before you buy a scratch card, check that the big prizes haven’t all been awarded

13. Choose your store with caution.

In the beginning of this article, we imagined a scenario where dozens of winning tickets were hung up for all to see. Does that make it a lucky store? Is that where you should buy your scratch off?

Probably not! Those winners are tempting, but that’s the point – they’re advertisements, and they’re tempting to everyone else, too!

Instead of going with the store that’s had the most wins recently, choose a store that doesn’t get a lot of traffic. You already know that there are a certain number of winners per scratch off roll. If you go to a busy store there’s a good chance the winners have already been bought.

• High traffic stores have most likely sold all the winning tickets
• Others have noticed those winning tickets, too! They’re advertisements!
• Choose a less busy location for a better chance of winning a prize

14. When in doubt, buy the newest cards.

If you don’t have time to research the odds of winning, it’s always best to ask the store clerk for the newest card. Different parts of the world have different policies. For instance, in North Carolina, United States, new cards are introduced every Tuesday.

Ask which cards were just released. For instance, you could say, “Hey, what’s the new five dollar card?” There are usually only one or two, and if they’re brand new your odds of winning are about the same for either one.

You may not win the big prize, but when you purchase a new scratch off you’re more likely to get a bigger prize than you would earn with the older ones. Assume, with the older cards, that all the good prizes have already been claimed.

• Different locations introduce new games at different times – find out yours
• When you don’t have time to research, always go with the newest card
• Your odds at winning scratch cards is higher with new cards than with old ones

15. Don’t forget to budget yourself.

Before you buy a card, set yourself a budget. How much do you want to spend? This number should roughly equate to how much you can afford to lose!

Remember that there’s no sure fire way how to win at scratch cards. There are ways to improve your odds, but there’s no guarantee. Assume that every card is a loser, and you’ll be that much more excited when you win!

• Set yourself a budget and stick to it
• There’s no guarantee to scratch cards
• Your spending budget should equal the amount you’re willing to part with

Summary

There’s no guarantee that you’re going to win at scratch off. But the games sure are fun!

Be smart and don’t overspend. If you can, avoid impulse buys, and always check to see if your location hosts a second chance drawing. You may not win a fortune playing scratch cards, but you can definitely improve your chances if you follow these 15 steps!