[kerkeslager]

> I guess it might work if there is X number of prizes/money per roll of tickets.

In most cases, there is, which is part of why a huge percentage of scratchoff prizes are won by workers at the place that sells them. Most players will scratch and redeem their prizes right in front of you, so if you watch a certain number of scratches occur in a roll and you know the prize structure of the particular card, you can calculate how many non-winning scratches you need to see for the odds to be in your favor.

I looked into this a few years ago and considered starting one of those stands that sells scratchoffs to do just this, but decided a) it wasn't quite lucrative enough to be worth it, and b) I wasn't sure of the ethics of skewing the odds against your customers like this anyway.

[cowsandmilk]

> I wasn't sure of the ethics of skewing the odds against your customers like this anyway.

This is interesting because I don’t think anyone would view the store as unethical for continuing to sell tickets from a roll when they know there have already been X winners from that role and therefore customer odds have gone down.

[kerkeslager]

I think the mental peculiarity here only makes sense if you're viewing the two situations in isolation. If the retailer is selling the whole roll to customers and buys none themselves every time, their knowledge of how many winners have been sold is irrelevant because that's exactly how everyone expects the game to work and no one is leveraging insider information against anyone.

The problem with selling out the roll when winning tickets have already been sold only occurs in tandem with the retailer buying remaining tickets when only non-winners have been sold so far. These aren't separable situations.

[alanfalcon]

There's similar for "pack hits" and trading cards, and the regulars learn which hobby shops are reputable and which ones to avoid. Most that remain in business are not scum.