Last night I went and bought a scratcher at 7/11. It is California Lottery's "Crossword Tripler". Your 12 letters are the ones you mark on the crossword puzzle. These are the prizes: 2 words - ticket 3 words - $4 4 words - $5 5 words - $10 6 words - $20 7 words - $50 8 words - $100 9 words - $1000 10 words - $20,000 After I finished scratching I counted 8 words. I thought to myself, holy shit, I just won $100! I wanted to make sure I didn't count wrong, so I wrote the words I had on paper. I counted 9 words, $1000!!! But wait... "If a completed word in a winning combination contains a letter within a moneybag (*Apple*) symbol, prize TRIPLES. No fucking way... $3000! I don't have a job, lost $100 playing poker at the casino a couple days ago, and I just won $3000! There I was stoned like no other, staring at a $3000 scratcher. My brother asked to see it, and I smiled as he looked until he asked, "Where did you get the E?" "What do you mean?" "There's no E." *I re-check ticket* And that's when I realized I marked all the E's on the crossword puzzle, when E wasn't one of my letters. Yeah...
Heh...funny. I've won $100 on a scratcher a couple times. $50 several times. But nothing over $100 on a scratcher. I STILL buy them at least once a week though, I usually buy only one or two, never spending more than $5 at a time. I have this nasty disease where I like to bust open packs of trading cards looking for the "hits" or good cards, it's the same thing with scratchers. Those crossword ones are great though, except that I never bother to mark off the words, being an English major and good with words, I just scratch the letters and then figure out how many words I've got. I like the bingo ones better, at least those take a couple minutes to do.
i used to work at a gas station and this dude would come in nightly and buy 100 worth of lotto tickets. One time he won 200 bucks on a 5 dollar ticket, along with 50 on a 1 dollar ticket. Since i was the one who sold him the tickets, he gave me 20 bucks. That would have to be the only time i've gained from lotto tickets, as i don't play them. Great story BTW.
I probably would've been 10x happier not marking the letters on the crossword. I've never seen the bingo one's, but I agree that the crosswords are great because I've had success with them in the past. $50 is a lot of money for a scratcher, especially since you only spend $5 a week on them. I basically had piss on my pants for nothing last night.