Scratching Off a New One: Let's Make a Deal

Some scratch tickets draw my eyeballs immediately. Others, not so much.

Set For Life doesn't call me, but it does whisper. I'll give it a go once in a while for old time's sake - and because it's the only $4 one and sometimes that's exactly the price I'm looking to pay.

Cash Blowout is kind of tempting because the minimum prize is a cool $25. I don't bother with it though because the wins cap off at $100 and I do plenty of dreaming small as it is, I don't need it when I'm playing the lottery.

But if there's one that didn't speak to me whatsoever, it's Let's Make a Deal.

Mainly because it's tied to a TV show that I've never seen. More than that, I don't have the faintest clue what it's about. I'm vaguely aware that it's a game show, but I've somehow missed it entirely.

And that's alright. There are plenty of other scratchers to keep me busy. I don't need to mess around with that one.

But for some reason, I threw it in the mix when I asked my wonderful Bluesky followers and mutuals to pick my next move.

I stocked the options with $5 tickets, and almost threw the Jumbo Bonus in there. But I had a bad feeling about it for some reason. It just didn't feel like the move, so I slipped Let's Make a Deal in its place. 

 

And wouldn't you know it, that's the one people picked. 

They made a really compelling case, too.

A practical appeal on one hand:

 

And a more abstract one on the other:

 

Who am I to argue with the logic here?

So, this was it. The people have spoken and I'm finally going to pop my Let's Make a Deal cherry.

 

The Ticket 

Odds of winning: 1 in 3.94. Not bad.

Still one $50,000 top prize remaining. That ain't too shabby, either.

And you not only get three separate games, but there's a bonus too. That's the kind of experience I'd expect from a $5 playthrough. 

 

It looks nice, too. I love me some purple, and this is about as purple as they get.

Game one's kind of fun - uncover the number in the middle and then see if you can find a matching one somewhere around the wheel. Nowhere nearly as satisfying as spinning an actual wheel, but they tried and I can appreciate that.

The $50K grand prize - so close, and yet so far away

 

What I can appreciate less is none of the numbers matching. 

Next up, you gotta beat the dealer - something I'm now familiar with thanks to my wasteful $20,000 Casino splurge.

And unlike that one, they only give you four hands here - you gotta pay premium to go a few extra rounds.

 

Didn't matter anyway. I got beat each time. But at least with four rounds, it feels more statistically plausible and not like a giant middle finger from the universe.

Last game is a round of Tic Tac Toe, which I haven't seen on any other scratcher yet, so that's really exciting. Especially since you get the same thrill you'd experience with a Bingo scratch-off: the feeling of being close.

Some of the jankiest O's I've ever seen

But no cigar.

Final shot is to uncover the Bonus window and see what hides behind it. Could be anything up to $20.

 

Including $0.

Oh well, that's how it goes.

A lot of fun, though. I'm glad I was swayed in this direction. Otherwise, I would've probably gone my whole life not knowing what Let's Make a Deal has to offer.

And now I'm wondering if the game show also has grown-ass adults playing Tic Tac Toe on a giant board for some serious money. I'll probably never find out though (too busy gambling to watch TV). 

Bonus Round: Chasing My Losses

Here's a little peek behind the scenes at Mr. Lucky Duck HQ: I write and publish these accounts based on whatever narrative I want to tell (it's called poetic license and I am free to wield it as I please). But in real life, the timeline doesn't always match up.

Case in point: I bought the $20,000 Casino and the Let's Make a Deal at the same time.

I scratched them off back to back, too.

Or really, Mrs. Lucky Duck did. I can't be having all the fun, so I get her in on the action sometimes.

So I had sank and lost $25 on the same morning.

And later in the early evening, I got a chance to redeem myself.

I ordered Mrs. Lucky Duck some pad thai and biked down to pick it up. Except, I got there way too fast (not bragging, the Thai place is really close by) so I had time to kill. And it just so happens I was right around the corner from a Shoppers Drug Mart.

Which means I was right around the corner from a spot that would indulge my newest hobby.

And look, I'm perfectly aware that you're not supposed to chase your losses. You make your wagers, take your lumps, and move on with your life. 

And yes, I should be finding better ways to fill my time - movies, books, baking, gardening, that sort of thing.

But it felt right, and sometimes I just do what feels right.  

So I walked up to the till, took a quick glance at the stacks, and asked for the first two that caught my eye: Bingo and 5X Blitz. (Forgive the horrendous lighting, it was getting dark.)  

 

2X Blitz has done me dirty in the past, so I need a bit more time before I give them another chance. And 10X Blitz is tempting, but after sinking $25 and getting nothing back, a $10 ticket felt reckless.

5X Blitz was right in the sweet spot.  

Sadly, the Bingo was a dud. But the 5X Blitz wasn't.

One matching number, with $10 underneath it. And because this game has multipliers, I could get 1X, 2X, 3X, or (dare I dream?) 5X that amount.

But in keeping with my luck that day, I only got 1X the prize and nothing in the Bonus lot. 

Hey, I'll take it. I spent $8 recklessly but made back $10, so that's $2 profit on my impulsive decision. 

I guess the lesson here is: sometimes doing the wrong thing is actually the right move.

But that's a dangerous idea - one that I will force myself to forget immediately so I can go back to play it (relatively) safe.

Tally

Wagered This Session: $13

Profit This Session: -$3

Total Profit Overall: -$43

 

Thanks for reading and feel free to support my nonsense. 

Mr. Lucky Duck Goes Big ($20,000 Casino Review)

I finally found it.

Two whole weeks after it dropped, I got my hands on the newest ALC scratch ticket: the $20,000 Casino.

Buying it felt like a bold move. These are $20 a pop, and I normally don't risk this much on a single gamble. I'm a guy with a big family to feed, so taking a shot on a $3 ticket is doable, but going for $20 borders on irresponsible.

But I reviewed the Flaming 7s soon after they came out, so I figured I should do the same with these, even if they did cost ten times as much.

It didn't help that I saw fellow Atlantic Canadian lottery aficionado Eddie Iceburg getting back-to-back $75 wins on the first two tickets he played. By golly, that could be me - but only if I actually bought the damn thing. 

So buy the damn thing I did. 

It's not like I had put it off on purpose. I looked for it every time I ran out to get groceries, but the budget grocery store was in no rush to start stocking this pricey bastard. I couldn't get this my frozen fries and peanut butter - it would have to be a pharmacy purchase.

Well, as luck would have it, I had a parcel waiting for me at the Canada Post counter at the nearby Jean Coutu. So on my way out, I stopped by cash to treat myself to one of these shiny big boys.

And it really is shiny. The photo doesn't do justice to its sparkle.

 

The color scheme is appealing, and I'm a real sucker for a casino theme (even though I've never actually been to one).

And the idea behind this one kind of drew me in. Instead of promising $500 grand or a million to five or six lucky winners, like you'd expect from a ticket at this price point, this one will pay out a more modest $20K to 200 lucky ducks.

So, more chances of winning the jackpot, but it's a much slimmer one.

But hey, $20K sounds pretty damn good to me. And by the time I got my mitts on it, six people had already become richer, so a better life truly is possible.

 

The Odds 

$20,000 Casino has a 1 in 3.39 chances of being a winner - and a 1 in 19,000 chance of paying out the top prize.

Not a sure bet by any means, but good enough to make a hopeful fool like myself dream about what he'll do with his future winnings.

 

Game 1: War

To simulate the casino experience, you get three games to scratch through.

First, you get a version of the card game War. Uncover two cards, you win if yours is higher than the dealer's.

Except in a game of War, you'd expect to win about 50% of the time. Here, you've got 7 hands and chances are none of them will pay you a dime.

And sure enough, even when I "drew" a Queen, I was bested by the house.

 

No luck on Game One, but still two more to go. 

 

Game 2: Slots

Round Two is the scratch-off version of slots: reveal seven sets of symbols, you win by getting three in a row.

Now seven pulls on a slot machine isn't much. You're likely to walk away empty handed after cycling through those few meager rounds.

And credit where it's due, the $20,000 Casino does a great job simulating that kind of losing streak.

 

So, bonus points for realism, I guess.

 

Game 3: Craps 

Last up is a dice game. Scratch off a pair of dice, if the numbers add up to 7 or 11, you're a winner.

This was it. My last chance to turn $20 into - well, probably into another $20, but you never know - could be a few hundred waiting for me on the other side of this.

Or there could be zero dollars. Because none of those numbers add up to a win.

 

The House Wins Once Again 

After waiting so long to get my first (and possibly only) $20,000 Casino ticket, I was kind of hoping my anticipation would've somehow translated into a win.

But nope, total bust.

And you know, it's kind of fun to risk this much. I can see the appeal of taking a big gamble instead of the dimes and dollars I've been tossing around.

But that thrill isn't worth the loss - at least, not with my current budget.

Until my luck turns around, I'm going to keep the stakes low - even if Eddie Iceburg makes winning on these look so easy.

 

Tally

Wagered This Session: $20

Profit This Session: -$20

Total Profit Overall: -$40

 

Thanks for reading and feel free to support my nonsense. 

Do Women Still Blow on Dice?

One thing about me is I've never set foot in a casino.

I've only every experienced them through the magic of cinema, which means I only exactly three things about them:

1. I'll never understand baccarat no matter how many times I watch James Bond play it.
2. With a ragtag group of low-lives and an airtight plan, you can rob the house blind (and look cool as hell while you do it).
3. If you want to win at craps, you have to get a sultry dame to blow on your dice.

Now, the casino heists, I mostly get. But that last one just baffles me.

I guess it's supposed to be some kind of sexual sorcery that lucks up your roll, but the more you think about it, the sillier it is. Why blowing? Why a sexy lady? Why any of it?

Whoever first came up with it must've been deep in the throes of a high-grade gambling fever.

So, I'm sitting here with a bunch of questions. Did it ever actually happen? Does it still happen? If you hang around the craps table long enough, do you get to see some sweaty guy with a loose bowtie asking the gal with the longest gams to puff on his dice before he tosses them?

And most importantly: does it actually work? 

 

Putting the Dice Blow to the Test

I don't live near any kind of gambling establishment, so if I'm gonna test this out, I'll need to work with what I've got at home.

I'm married, so that takes care of the most important element - I've got an attractive woman with a pair of lips who can give me some of that witchy magic.

The real obstacle is the game itself. Because there's no way for me to wager on anything that actually involves throwing dice.

I could probably play craps online, but that would involve clicking instead of rolling. And getting Mrs. Lucky Duck to blow on my PC monitor would probably accomplish nothing other than making us both feel awkward. 

So, no dice (literally).

Instead, I decided to buy a small stack of scratch-offs and get her to scratch them off for me. That's reasonably close - sorta kinda.

Nothing too fancy this time around: a 2X Blitz, a Bingo, and a Winning 7 to round it out.

Like a guy on a roll, I pinned all my hopes of winning on her. Her feminine energy would work some kind of alchemy with the scratchers that would get us a really big payout.

All I had to do was sit back and wait for the money to roll in.

Snake Eyes

... And all of them were duds.

Not a single winner in the pack.

Now, to be fair, I did stack the odds against her. On average, you can expect to get a win every four tickets or so, so handing her three meant I was really letting her mojo do all the heavy lifting.

So much for the magic of blowing.

Though it occurs to me now that I might have done the whole thing wrong.

Getting her to dust off the tickets wasn't the right move. That's like asking her to throw the deice herself, which isn't how this is supposed to work.

Next time, I'm doing this the right way.

I'll get her to blow on the stack but I'll be scratching them off myself.

Then I'll finally know for sure if this superstition makes any sense or if it's yet another gamblers' delusion.

 

Thanks for reading and feel free to support my nonsense. 

Budget Bonanza: Lowboys and Midboys

I grabbed a few things at Giant Tiger this afternoon, a primo opportunity to try the brand new $20,000 Casino scratch-off.

But nope, they didn't have it yet.

Poring over the display case, I had to think fast.

Instead of blowing $20 on the new bad boy in town, I moved my eyes to the more affordable stacks and picked three tickets in a rush so I don't hold up the line for too long.

I tried to go out of my comfort zone, so no Flaming 7s, Winning 7s, or Super Crosswords for me this time. No checking the odds and remaining prizes ahead of time, either. Just winging it and seeing if I can make a few bucks out of the blue.

 

Lucky 7

Lucky 7 is the lowest of the low boys. The only $1 scratch-off the ALC provides for the frugal but hopeful.

It's a quick round with low odds (1 in 4.6) but all ten of the $7,777 top prizes are still out waiting to be won, so that's promising.

All I have to do is scratch out the nine horseshoes and see what treasures await me on the other side.

 

And whaddaya know, this one's actually decent.

Right smack in the middle of my horsehoes, there was a sweet 7 there. Which at first, I thought meant nothing because it was all by its lonesome, but then I looked at the paytable again and found out I actually won 7 smackers.

 

I had extremely low hopes for this lowly ticket, but a 7x return is damn decent. 

 

Bingo

I don't normally mess around with the $3 Bingo scratcher - I'm more of a $5 Bingo Extra guy.

The differences are subtle. Bingo Extra gives you eight cards to scratch instead of six, and you've got a chance to win $50K instead of $30K.

The odds of winning are about even for both though (roughly 1 in 3.6), so I think it really comes down to the fact that I've had more wins on the bigger scratcher so I keep being lured back in.

 

But rationally speaking, I can probably have more fun and more chances of scoring if I got two Bingos instead of a Bingo Extra each time I've got the urge to play it.

And I probably should do that, because this Bingo had all the same exact thrills as its taller cousin.

The fun of hunting for numbers.

The tantalizing thrill of being close - just one number off from forming a line or two.

This time, I even experienced the best kind of excitement there is: thinking you lost but poring over the ticket again to realize you actually uncovered one entire line.

 

That's on Card #4, which makes it a $13 win, so now I'm very much on a roll. And hopefully that luck holds up because the stakes are about to get higher.

 

Set For Life 

There's nothing really wrong with a Set For Life ticket.

Four bucks to play, odds are what they should be for a ticket this price (1 in 3.74), and you get six different games out of it (short ones, but still beats that nine horseshoe nonsense I just zipped through a few minutes ago).

Plus, I would quite like to be set for life. Sounds like a blast. A thousand bucks a week for 25 years isn't enough for me to stop working, but it's enough for me to stop taking jobs that suck so that'd be awesome.

But I still tend to avoid it.

I think it's because of the vacation theme they splatter all over it. It doesn't speak to me whatsoever. I'm a chronic homebody, so I don't really like to venture too far off and vacationing sounds like a pain in the ass more than anything.

 

It's also where my luck runs out. I've never won a damn thing on a Set For Life and today is no exception. Six games, all bust.

 

Cha-Ching

Total Spent: $8 

Total Won: $20

That's $12 profit right there, which is very good when you consider that most of these are bound to be losers.

Nothing life-changing or even day-changing about that kind of money, but it's still nice to pocket it - even though I'm just going to blow it on one of those $20,000 Casino scratchers as soon as I find one.

 

Thanks for reading and feel free to support my nonsense. 

 

Budget Bonanza - Blitz Edition

There are only two reasons to buy $2 scratch tickets.

The odds are worse than the big boys, and if you do luck out and hit big, you only hit kinda big.

But they're a good way to play when you've got a tight budget or just want to round up your groceries with a couple of bucks.

They're also a good way to max out your odds of winning something.

Drop $10 on a Super Crosswords and you've got about 1/3 chances of hitting a payoff - even a small one.

But drop $10 on five of budget scratchers and chances are one of them will hit.

And that's pretty much what I did today.

After having no succcess with the Neon 9s, I asked the crowd to pick the next one for me. This time, I included a price range:

$5 Winning 7 

$4 Set For Life

$3 Bingo

All fine options, but it's it's the bargain basement 2X Blitz that won out. And I didn't want another letdown, so I got four of these suckers to pump up the odds.

 

Zap Zap!

The 2X Blitz gives you two chances to win, which is very considerate.

The standard game gives you four winning numbers. If any of those match any of the 15 numbers on the card, you win either 1x or 2x the prize amount (hence the whole 2X Blitz thing)

 

Once you're done that, you've got a small bonus box to scratch off at the bottom. If you get 3 electrified Bs (who designs these things?) you get a $10 consolation prize, which ain't too shabby for a toonie scratcher.

And of course, it's a budget ticket so the odds blow:

• 1 in 4.54 chance of winning anything
• 64% total prize payout (which feels greedy even for a lotto company)
• $20,000 grand prize (not exactly life changing but would significantly improve mine)

But unlike the Neon 9, there's actually one top winner still out there - possibly in the very stack I have sitting in front of me.

Come on, Gimme Those 2X Multipliers

Nah, sadly there was no top winner in this stack.

None of them had a triple-B bonus, either. Which is a shame, because that would automatically put me in the profit zone.

Out of all four, there was only one ticket with a prize. Lightning truly doesn't strike twice in the same stack.

Right there in the first spot: matched a 9 with a 9 to uncover a $2 prize.

Or so I thought, because I forgot what game I was playing. I kept scratching and found out there was a 2X multiplier next to that figure.

So, $4 back out of my initial $8 investment.

As far as lottery winnings go, making half your money back isn't a terrible outcome.

And I know this is chump change, but still, getting that 2X multiplier was genuinely thrilling. I can only imagine how excited people get uncovering the multipliers in 5X Blitz and 10X Blitz - gotta be such a rush.

If you count the Neon 9 that started this whole thing, I'm down $9 total.

If you don't, I'm only down $4.

Either way, the good times will keep rolling. Next time I need to stop by Jean Coutu or Giant Tiger, I'm coming out with more of these bad boys. Though probably not the 2X Blitz again - I might let those cool for a while. 

 

Thanks for reading and feel free to support my nonsense.