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.
No comments:
Post a Comment