Tips & Stategy to Win More Pennsylvania Lottery Scratch Off Tickets
The easiest way to gain an advantage playing Pennsylvania Lottery scratch off games is understanding a few things about how the games are created. These games are designed for the player base at large to lose. More combined value of losing tickets are sold than winning prizes by a large margin. Because of this the only guaranteed winner is Pennsylvania and its senior citizens (which the Pennsylvania Lottery largely benefits). If you set a reasonable play budget and understand that you may lose that money you are already on a path to having fun and playing responsibly.
Please also see our Disclaimers & Additional Win PA Lottery Information page.
Use Coupons When Buying Scratch Offs From Lottery Machines
The Pennsylvania Lottery offers coupons almost every day of the year. During some seasons they are better than others, but there always seems to be something available. You can check the Pennsylvania Lottery Coupons page here. The best coupons are free fast plays when buying expensive scratch offs so keep an eye out for those!
Maximizing Coupon Use
If you click 'print offer' on any of these coupons from your home computer the system will know what coupon it assigned you and consistently assign you that same coupon code every time you click. This is unfortunate for the player because each code can only be used in a lottery machine one time. To get multiple of the same coupon you can click 'print coupon' on your mobile device while connected to your cellphone provider's data network (not W-Fi). You can then scan the barcode it generates into the lottery machine directly from your phone from the page it wants you to print. Each time you do this you will have a different device address and get a different coupon barcode to use.
Winning Pennsylvania Scratch Ticket Methods & Strategies
The Singleton Method For Short Term Play
To understand this method you must also understand the even/random distribution rule for Pennsylvania Lottery scratch off ticket prizes. You can read details provided directly from the Pennsylvania Lottery here, but the jist is that prizes are randomly distributed to retailers in all regions of Pennsylvania for every game. So theoretically if the odds of winning a prize in the game you are playing are 1:3, and there are 30 tickets per pack, there should almost always be about 10 winners per pack. This also means all top prizes are randomly and evenly distributed across Pennsylvania so no one region or store will ever be luckier than another. You could buy all your tickets at a single machine for the rest of your life and stand a very similar chance of winning a top prize than you would if you traveled around the state buying from different machines.
How The Singleton Method Works
Now that you understand random distribution we can make the assumption that the odds of winning printed on the back of the ticket will dictate the amount of winners in each pack. Let's stick to our hypothetical game where 30 tickets are in each pack and the odds of buying a winning ticket are 1:3. Let's also assume you approach a machine with a brand new pack and buy the first ticket. Your odds of buying a winning ticket are 10:30 or 33.33%. Now Let's assume the first ticket is unfortunately a loser. If you continue to play and buy the next ticket in the pack, your odds mathematically increase to 10:29 or 34.48%. If the second ticket is also a loser your odds will increase on the next ticket to 10:28 or 35.71% and will keep increasing until you finally find the pack's first winning ticket.
From a brand new pack:
| Losses In A Row | Chance On Next Ticket |
|---|---|
| 1 | 33.33% |
| 2 | 34.48% |
| 3 | 35.71% |
| 4 | 37.04% |
| 5 | 38.46% |
| 6 | 40.00% |
| 7 | 41.67% |
| 8 | 43.48% |
| 9 | 45.45% |
| 10 | 47.62% |
As you can see after just six losses your chances of winning the next ticket improve from 1:3 to 2:5. The only downside is once you find that winning ticket it could be a minimum prize resulting in a substantial loss. In the long run however this method is guaranteed to deliver wins of varying sizes and someday it could be a jackpot!
Conversely
This method can also work against you if you don't know the outcomes of the previous tickets in the game you are playing. Let's say, hypothetically, you approach a lottery machine, buy a ticket and are given the third ticket in the pack (how do I know which ticket I received?). If a lucky player before you bought the first two tickets and won both times your odds of winning are drastically reduced because now you only have an 8:28 or 28.57% chance of winning.
From a brand new pack:
| Tickets Won Previously | Chance On Next Ticket |
|---|---|
| 1 | 31.03% |
| 2 | 28.57% |
Extrapolating The Singleton Method For Long Term Play
What if you knew this information for all tickets printed across the entire state? You might be surprised to know Pennsylvania makes this information publicly available for those that know how and where to find it. The Pennsylvania Lottery submits to a state regulatory body a document on which the amount of winning tickets that exist in each game are shown (it even documents how the prize will appear on your ticket!). If you dig deeper you will also find the Pennsylvania Lottery website shows the amount of remaining winners in ciruclation for the top six prize levels in each game.
This is where the proprietary data processing of Win PA Lottery comes in. Utilizing the law of large numbers, and a custom blend of theoretical winning statistics, the mathematically proven singleton method can be closely applied to the entire game. The law of large numbers simply states that given a sample of independent and identically distributed values (Like scratch off tickets are distributed in Pennsylvania), the sample mean converges to the true mean. According to this theorem you should be able to deduce that if there are a certain percentage of 6th prizes still in circulation, that same percentage of other top prizes should also still be in circulation. If there are more documented available prizes still to be found then you should play that game! If there are less, you might want to choose differently.
The results of our custom calculations can be found daily on the best Pennsylvania Lottery scratch off tickets to play website. Have fun and good luck!
Using a Win to Your Advantage
If you are playing the same 1:3 game described above, and you just won a prize, keep in mind that you've removed a winning ticket from the pack in your machine.
Switching Machines After a Win
If you're excited and want to keep playing after a win you might stand a better chance finding a different pack of the same game in another machine where the odds of buying a winner could be better.
Switching Games After a Win
Another good strategy after a win is to switch games to another heavily weighted entry on our best scratch off tickets to play in Pennsylvania website.
Being Observant of Other Players
Undoubtedly, you will see other players using the lottery machine you buy tickets from. Sometimes you will even see them buy a ticket and begin scratching it right on the machine or on a table nearby. If you see someone buy a ticket from the game you are about to play it can benefit you to watch their result before you buy yours. If they toss their ticket into the trash your odds of winning if you buy the next ticket just went up and you didn't even have to pay anything for the information. If they win you may want to try a different game.
Always Scan Your Ticket
Whether you're playing near the lottery machine or at home, always remember to scan your ticket! (Where do I scan my ticket?) There is so much going on with modern tickets that it can sometimes be hard to realize that you have actually won. From bingo cards, to crossword puzzles, bonus areas and matching numbers it is getting harder to simply find out if you have won. Sometimes you think you know the answer but it is always good to double check. Scratch off the "scratch to cash" area located in the very bottom right hand side of your ticket and scan it. This can be done right at the lottery machine at your local retailer or on the official Pennsylvania Lottery App for Android and iPhone. The system will tell you if and what you have won, or if you have lost via a message on the screen.