Most penny slots have paybacks that are better than that.Īnd other gambling games, like blackjack, can approach 99% payback without any card counting at all. To give you an example of how bad lottery tickets can be, most $1 scratch offs have an expected value of around 60%, meaning for every $1 you spend, you’re expected to get back just $0.60 a $0.40 loss. There are even several movies about it.Īnd poker has been shown to be a game of skill just look at the repeat winners of major tournaments like the World Series of Poker and the World Poker Tour.īut most people still refer to the lottery as an “idiot tax”.Īnd scratch offs have a notoriously bad expected value (which you can think of as a gambling game’s return on investment). When most people think of advantage gambling, state lottery scratch-offs are the last thing that enters their minds.Įveryone’s heard of counting cards at blackjack.
Secrets of State Lottery Scratch-off Contracts
