[refurb]

There is something to this. I had to do some training years ago at Alberta Lottery in Canada. Scratch tickets are sold in blocks of $100 (100 x $1, 50 x $2, etc).

We were told that each pack contains at least one winning ticket (it might be $5 or it might be $100K).

That's a definite weakness.

[Someone]

Are you considering doing card counting (enter a shop, watch people buy and scratch cards, and start buying after a large streak of non-winning cards)?

Otherwise, I do not see what that information (if it is true) would give you.

[refurb]

I was working at a place that sold these tickets. If you could keep track of each pack that was sold, you could get to the point where you knew your purchase would be a winner.

Obviously not something a person who didn't have the ability to monitor the purchases could do.

[catshirt]

i believe the point is that the there is a pattern to the distribution. we can only safely assume the pattern is on a micro level, but it would suggest there are larger patterns at play.

for instance, is it possible to ship 5 rolls with million dollar winnings to the same store in a week? maybe the answer is yes, but i imagine there's a reason to prevent this. in case it's not clear i am just guessing. i don't really know what i'm talking about.

[Someone]

"but it would suggest there are larger patterns at play."

That, I do not see. If there are some guarantees as to having guaranteed prices per roll, one can see the lottery as the sum of small, per-roll lotteries, possibly combined with a larger one to distribute the truly large prices. There is no reason to assume that those per-roll lotteries will be correlated in some way.

[gibybo]

that would definitely be an effective way to exploit the weakness, and if the value of your time is low enough, it would be profitable. A slightly more efficient way to exploit it would be to have the shop owner as a friend and have them tell you when a large non-winning streak has occurred.