Lucky Number 9 (Is That Even a Thing?)

I pass over the Neon 9 scratch ticket every time I see it.

And I see it all the time, in every ALC display case I encounter.

I'm not sure why it hasn't called my name yet, because it has a lot of superficial appeal.

The color scheme is bright and fetching. I love me some pink, and this is the only ticket that has any.

There's a vaguely Vegas theme here, which usually lures me in, maybe because of all those casino video games I played as a youngster.

It's a $5 ticket and that's really been my sweet spot. It usually means decent odds, a jackpot that's high enough to make a major difference to my life, and I can grab two at a time without having to tell my kids we can't afford peanut butter this week. 

But instead, I always ask the cashier for something else. A couple of Bingo Extras, a Jumbo Bonus, or a few 2X Blitzes (when I'm going for quantity over quality).

If I'm being perfectly honest with myself, I think it's the number.

My brain has been wired by slot machine games to crave cherries and lemons, to thirst for a row of gold bars, and especially to covet the almighty number seven.

That's what a guy like me is after: a row of 7s that gives me a win so big I have to get my wife to drive me to the Atlantic Lottery Commission office to cash it out. A win so big that I can take enough time off work to learn how to drive so I can get my own damn self to the ALC office if it happens more than once. 

That's why I keep pissing away my toonies on tiny stacks of Flaming 7 scratchers. It's also why I've given the Winning 7 a shot. And you know what? I uncovered enough 7s on that one to make it worth my while.

But that changes today. Because I may be under the thrall of good ol' Lucky Number 7, but I'm even weaker to peer pressure.

I posted a few scratchers on Bluesky and asked my small band of followers and mutuals to pick my next $5 scratch-off. And Puzzlebombs jumped right in with an enthusiastic vote for Neon 9.

Puzzlebombs has never steered me wrong, so let's scratch this thing and see if the number nine has some of that lucky seven juice.

 

What's the Deal with Neon 9?

Right off the bat, I know that some lottery nerds out there would scold me for picking this one up.

Not because it only offers a potential $50K payout. Not because its 1 in 3.9 odds of winning are lower than Super Crossword's 1 in 3.55 chances of winning. And not because it's full of pink and I'm sure some of those nerds are weird about that.

Nah, they'd kick me out of their weird little lotto club because there were a grand total of two $50K prizes for this ticket and both have been claimed already.

But you know what? I don't care. There might be still be up to 15 grand hidden inside one of the remaining Neon 9s and that's a decent amount of dough for me.

Other than the odds, it's basically a slot-style gameplay: 12 rows to scratch off, get 3 matching symbols in any row and win the prize next to it.

Oh yeah, and the 9s: get any row with two 9s and you double the prize amount. Get a row with three 9s and you get a real treat: 3x the money.

A very quick playthrough, but it will be all worth it if I see a few of those sweet, sweet 9s.

 

Toonie Time

Trusty toonie in hand, I got down to business.

And I gotta say, I was really taken aback by the first row I scratched.

Not a great start

I really wasn't expecting to see numbers under there. Well, the 9s yes, but that's it.

I anticipated symbols - cherries, lemons, bells, whatever. This felt weirdly... fake? Like I was scratching off a bootleg ticket.

Screw it though. Gimme the numbers, as long as you give me three identical ones in a row, I'm cool with it.

The game got really exciting on row 4, though. That's where I uncovered my first 9 and a potential double prize lot.

Come on, big money...

 

But nope. Right next to it was a number 13 - the least lucky number imaginable and now personally responsible for my financial precarity.

There were two more 9s on this scratcher, but none of them shared a row. Just a bunch of loners refusing to cough up any dough.

Rude!!

And that's just the way it went the whole way through. Twelve games, zero winners.

Womp womp

The Dark Side of the Neon

Alright, so my first experience with the Neon 9 was kind of bogus.

This is partly my fault. I like to buy at least two scratch-offs at once so I can improve my odds of getting something, but this time I put all my hopes and dreams in a single $5 ticket.

The whole numbers thing still kind of freaks me out. I'm perfectly fine with numbers when you're matching them (like on a Jumbo Bonus or something like that) but when it's designed like a flat 2D slot machine, you've gotta put some pictures on there to excite my dull monkey brain.

It was fun though. A lot like a Flaming 7s but with higher stakes and the added possibility of getting some 9s to multiply your wins.

So I wasted my hard earned money yet again, but it's all good. I'll just dust myself off and keep on gambling, because I'm living life on the edge! 😎