The $3 Sweet Spot

I'm a cheap bastard. So when I started messing around with scratchers, I figured I'd be hitting the lowboys hard.

The math kinda makes sense. If I've got $10 to spare, I could blow it all on one ticket and have it fizzle out in a single pop. Or I could stretch it out by loading up on a bunch of $2 ones and make the good times last a wee bit longer.

That wouldn't leave me with a ton of options, but there are some pretty decent ones. I find the Flaming 7s really appealing. 2X Blitz ain't bad either. Crossword's alright too.

But it's kind of hard to resist the pricier ones.

A guy gets curious. So I started sampling them a bit.

And you know what? They're pretty great.

I gave the $20,000 Casino a shot even though a $20 wager is 

I put down ten bucks to get Mrs. Lucky Duck a 10X Blitz ticket. I passed it off as being a generous husband, but I was also trying to experience it vicariously through her. 

We also tried the new Monopoly scratchers when they dropped about a month ago, which included a $10 one. (Total bust, by the way.)

Buncha losers

And maybe I'd change my mind if I had more disposable income, but those don't feel like they're worth the price.

They're fine. And the promise of a bigger payout is obviously exciting. But the thrill of playing is almost outweighed by the bummer of losing that much money in one go.

The only exception is Crossword Supreme. Because for $10 it actually gives you a lot more scratch time, and I can appreciate the stretched out dopamine rush.

So many grids...

 

But now I've kind of settled into my sweet spot.

I'll do the occasional $5 ticket. Sometimes I'll throw in a $1 or $2 ticket to round out a purchase. And I'm sure I'll fall for the more expensive ones now and then.

But for the most part, I'm going for the $3 ones.

They're reasonably low risk. The odds are usually close to what you see on the $5 ones. I wouldn't be able to retire on the jackpots but they'd take a chunk out of my debt so that'd be great.

Mostly, they're a lot of fun. You get a lot of bang per buck.

There are just three in that category, but they're all great.

Bingo sends me hunting for 28 numbers, which I find really satisfying.

Crossword Deluxe only has 18 letters to search for, but it'll still keep me busy for a little bit.

And Winner's Circle involves scratching out rounded segments, which is kinda neat.

They're all fantastic. But if I ever pop over to Jean Coutu or Giant Tiger without a plan (or without someone telling me how to gamble), I'll default to the same thing every time: two Bingos and two Crossword Deluxes. One of each for me and one each for Mrs. Lucky Duck.

And since I had to go pick up the dog's meds this morning, I just happen to have my usual combo ready to go.

So let's see if there's a winner here. 

 

Let's Get (Slightly) Richer 

I did the Crossword Deluxe first.

Started off okay. The first two letters I uncovered were R and M - pretty decent ones all things considered. Got a U soon after. It's always nice to see a vowel, though it's no E.

At the fifth letter, I became convinced this ticket wouldn't be netting me 30 grand. Probably wouldn't even get me single grand.

But I kept going for the sheer enjoyment of it - and because I might break even, and it's always nice to break even. 

I ended up getting two primo letters: S and E. But it didn't matter, because I wasn't able to cobble together four words to get a win.

So, nothing there.

Which is fine, because the real excitement was the Bingo scratcher. Because this one had a brand new design.

And it's not just the Sex Pistols color scheme that's new. They changed the game too. 

You can still win in some of the usual ways - 1 line, 4 corners, or an X. But now you can also score by getting the "Postage Stamp," which is the 2x2 pink corner that's on each card.

Kinda neat. Never seen that in a real bingo game, so points for creativity. And really, it's incredible that anyone's found a way to innovate on a classic game like this. 

I knew that pink and green looked familiar.

So I scratched out all the Free spaces, then each of the numbers one by one. And like usual, I had a few close calls - lines that were just one space away from getting filled, and even a 3/4 postage stamp.

But nah, nothing on this one either.

A total bust - or at least it would be if I hadn't got the same set for Mrs. Lucky Duck. She had a lot more luck than I did, scoring $14 on her Bingo ticket (in the form of 1 line plus 4 corners, so neither of us got to taste a postage win yet).

So in the end, we came out of this $2 richer. Which is about what you can expect when you're playing in the $3 zone.  

 

Tally

Wagered This Session: $12

Profit This Session: $2

Total Profit Overall: $148.96 

 

Thanks for reading and feel free to support my nonsense.

The $1 Lotto Experiment (Going Loony With Loonies)

As you can imagine, money's probably the main thing that draws me to the lottery - and every other form of gambling.

I'd love to win a million. Anything in the six figures would probably be somewhat life-changing. And hell, I'll jump for joy whenever I win a twenty.

But I'm also in it for the love of the game. 

It's extremely enjoyable to me. Lights up all the most ticklish parts of my brain.

I'm very much playing the lottery.

So playtime and play frequency really matter to me.

That's why I gravitate toward the Bingo and Crossword scratch tickets. Each of those will keep me busy for a good five or ten minutes - or more if I treat myself to the expensive ones. 

It's part of the reason I'm obsessed with video poker - with 10-cent bets, I can make ten bucks last a long time.

It's also why I'm kind of iffy about Lotto Max.

Obviously, I get the appeal of the huge jackpot - $15 million at the moment. Like every other moth, I can't help but eye that flame.

But a Lotto Max ticket is five bucks, and that's where my reluctance kicks in.

Do you know how many hands of Jacks or Better I could play for that much money?

Or I could pop over to the convenience store and grab a couple of Bingo scratchers and give myself a double dopamine rush.

I could even get about 25 spins on any slot machine that doesn't have "High Stakes" in the name.

And they want me to blow it all on one single ticket? That I can't even scratch off?

No way. Not happening. Not unless my purse strings get a lot looser.

I'm still fond of the lottery though, and I want in on the action.

So you can keep your $15 million jackpot (unless you wanna share, that'd be cool too). If I'm going to play, I'm playing at my speed.

And that speed is roughly a dollar.

Given that the excitement and anticipation of a lottery draw gets hosed down by the sobering odds (approximate chances of winning the Lotto Max jackpot is 1 in 33million - good luck with that), that feels like the right price point.

But one specific feature of my degeneracy is that I don't just like to gamble - I like to do it frequently. "Play low, play often," that's my motto that I just made up.

So as an experiment, I decided that's what I'd do this week.

I'd play all the $1 lotteries available in my province, and I'd play every draw that happened over the course of seven days. 

Odds of me ending the week a richer man are still going to be quite low. But way better than 1 in 33million at least. 

The Lotteries

If I was doing this by the book, I'd be playing Lotto 4 every day because you can pick a $1, $2, or $5 wager. 

But Lotto 4 is only available in stores, and I don't leave the house unless I have to. So screw that.

That leaves me with three lotteries.  

Atlantic 49

 

Of all the dollar lottos, this is the big one. But it's basically a baby version of Lotto 6/49. 

Same basic concept: pick six numbers from 1 to 49 (plus a bonus number). If at least 3 of your numbers matches the 6 that are drawn, you win something (at least $4).

Match all six, and you win the jackpot.

Which in this case, would mean turning a buck into one million of those bucks.  

Second-highest prize is nothing to sneeze at either: $64,900. 

Plus a guaranteed prize of $25,649 for one lucky winner each draw.

Eye-popping numbers, for sure. But the odds are definitely working against me here. There will be two draws during my loonie week: on Wednesday and Saturday.

Each time, the chances of winning anything will be 1 in 32. So it's unlikely one of these will hit.

Oh, and the odds of winning the million are about 1 in 14 million. So extremely unlikely it will hit big.

But $2 for two chances at it really ain't a terrible deal.

Bucko

 

Bucko is where I've got my sights set this week. It's the true dollar lotto - even the logo looks budget.

I'm going to buy a ticket every day. And each of them is going to have three rows, each with five numbers from 1 to 41.

If any of the rows exactly matches the five numbers from the nightly draw, boom - $20,000 right in my pocket. 

If none of the numbers match, I get a free ticket. If four of them match across different rows, I get my dollar back. 5+ matches and I win some amount between $1 and $1,000 (unless they're all in the same row, then I win big).

No one becomes a millionaire by playing Bucko. But it's far more forgiving than playing either of the 6/49s.

Odds of winning anything are 1 in 4.5, for the jackpot it's 1 in 249,800.

Not bad. Achievable, even. Especially since I'll be doing it seven times over. 

Tag

 

For some reason, the ALC likes to brag that Tag is only available in Atlantic Canada.

I guess they're very fond of the basic concept, which is: a mini lottery you can add to your regular lottery.

When you buy a ticket for any lottery draw, you can add Tag to it for a buck. That gives you a row of six digits. If those digits match the ones from the Tag draw (in order), you get some dough - from $2 if the last number is a match, to 100K if all six line up.

Since you can't win unless your last number matches the one in the draw, the odds on this one are 1 in 10 (and 1 in 600,000 of scoring a full match). 

Apparently you can add Tag up to ten times for each lottery ticket, which is truly unhinged. 

And as tempting as it is to go all out and add ten Tags to every ticket I buy this week, I'm going to do this sensibly. I'll Tag once per ticket - for a total of nine Tags. 

 

My Prediction 

Over the next seven days, I'll be spending $18 on:

• 2 Atlantic 49 tickets
• 7 Bucko tickets
• 9 Tags

My guess is I'm going to end up winning four times.

 

Specifically: I'm predicting two wins on Bucko and two on Tag 

 

Statistically, I believe the likelihood is three wins. But my gut says four. And that's what the lottery is about - living by your gut, not doing the math.

 

Monday

Bucko + Tag 

One nice thing about the lottery is the morning email.

 

The draws happen at night and you get notified of a win at like 2AM. So if you're in bed at a decent hour, that means as soon as you check your notifications in the morning, you find out that you're a winner.

 

So yeah, you win some money. But you also get to start your day on a really chipper note.

 

And I know that for a fact, because that's how my week began, with an email congratulating me on winning.

 

 

It's only Bucko and a $1 win at that. But it still put a pep in my step. 

 

Wins: $1 

 

Tuesday

Bucko + Tag

 

Bucko was less kind to me on day two.

 

But that's alright, because I had to go out and grab some groceries so I had a second opportunity to win something.

And because it's loonie week, the obvious choice was a Lucky 7 - the $1 ticket that has treated me kindly in the past.

 

 

I decided to scratch it off with a loonie so I'd be really on-theme.

 

And what's this? 

 

Is my luck turning around already?

 

Is this quick little scratch-off about to net me fifty big ones?

 

Nope. Nothing.

 

Oh well. Still 14 more lottery tickets to go, so you never know.

 

Wins: $0 

Wednesday

Atlantic 49 + Tag + Bucko + Tag 

The morning email strikes again!

And this time, it strikes twice, because it informs me that I won $1 and $3 on Bucko.

 

I didn't even know you could win twice on one ticket. But after a bit of sleuthing, I figured out that I won the $3 by getting 3 matches on the same row, and because there was another matching number somewhere else on the ticket, that meant another $1 for 4 total matches.

So that's two wins on Bucko so far, which fulfills half my prediction. Tag's still got some catching up to do though.

 

And as I anticipated: no win on Atlantic 49. I sure know how to call'em. 

 

Wins: $4 

Thursday 

Bucko + Tag 

 

On Monday, I wrote about the excitement of the morning lotto email. 

 

Waking up and immediately finding out you've own some money is where it's at.

 

But the flipside to that is the conspicuous absence of the morning email. Greeting the day with a reminder that, yet again, you've won squat.

 

At least with scratch-offs, the disappointment happens mid-day, so it doesn't start you off on the wrong foot and leaves you enough time to make up for it. 

 

Wins: $0 

 

Friday

Bucko + Tag

Yet another winless day.

But tomorrow is the last Atlantic 49 draw for the week, so it's time to get my ticket.

So, I guess I should confess something. I think it's considered shameful to lottery nerds, but I don't actually choose my numbers. I don't even know where I'd begin - I don't have any lucky numbers and I don't have any strong hunches about which numbers might land.

When it's time to buy a ticket, I just select Insta Pik and get the randomly generated numbers.

Which is what my mom used to do, at least for a while. There was no Insta Pik back then - she had to use a pen to mark her numbers on the ticket and then hand it to cashier at the gas station. But for a while, she relied on a Lotto 6/49 keychain to do the picking for her.

I can't find a photo of the same one she had, but it was basically like this one:

 

An analog random number generator, which I found fascinating at the time and utterly charming now.

If I could get my hands on one of these, I'd never Insta Pik again. I'd just shake my keychain and pray the balls land in the winning spots.

Wins: $0 

Saturday

Atlantic 49 + Tag + Bucko + Tag

Well, I was right about Atlantic 49. Not a single win on that one. 

It's not just me, though. There were no million dollar winners, and no one got the $64K prize either.

With this losing streak, I'm starting to really feel the defeatism creep in. Which I think is a feature of this whole thing and why I tend to shy away from the classic lottery (though it does keep luring me back).

And yeah, obviously you're probably going to toss away a lot more money than you win back (that's the nature of this particular beast). But with scratch tickets, there's this kind of cheery hopefulness to them. Maybe because it's more of a game and has a tactile element to it, so it's kind of like a little party, and the entire time you're getting that low level "what if I'm about to win thousands?" dopamine rush. 

With lottery tickets, I'm going in expecting to lose.

There's not as much thrill. It feels transactional: I give the ALC money for the chance to get some more in return.

Maybe that's what this whole experiment has been about. Because there was a slight bit of excitement at the beginning of it. Like maybe if I buy enough tickets, I can tip the scales - not in my favor, exactly, but at least enough to make winning likely.

And it did at first. Those two Bucko wins were practically back to back. So who knows, if tomorrow brings tidings of cash money, perhaps I'll completely turn around on lottery draws. 

Wins: $0

Sunday

Bucko + Tag

The $1 Lotto Experiment ends not with a cha-ching, but a whimper. 

My last pair of tickets - Bucko with Tag - are duds.

But it's not a total loss, because I did have some amount of fun doing this.

Though I can't help but compare it to scratch-offs.

$18 could've bought me 18 Lucky 7s, 6 Bingos, 6 Crossword Deluxes, or 9 Flaming 7s. Those would've been more enjoyable and I might've just walked away with more winnings.

Still, I may throw the occasional buck in a classic lottery draw. Why not? It's better and more exciting than most other things you can buy for a dollar.

Tally

Wagered This Session: $19 (including the Lucky 7)

Profit This Session: -$14

Total Profit Overall: $146.96 

 

Thanks for reading and feel free to support my nonsense.

Lightning Strikes Twice

Until very recently, I don't think I'd ever seen a Royal Flush.

Not in any of the hands I played with a real deck of cards.

Not in any of the casino video games I've played or any version of online poker I've tried.

I'd been fortunate enough to see the occasional Straight Flush, but never one with all five of the high cards.

So it felt almost mythological to me. Sort of like being a lottery winner - the kind of thing you know is possible, but probably won't ever happen to you.

But a couple of weeks ago, it finally happened - and it completely changed my attitude toward the Royal Flush.

Mr. Lucky Duck Indeed

Thanks to a generous ALC promo, I found myself with $20 worth of promo cash to burn through.

My goal was fairly modest: turn that fake $20 into a real $20 so I can cash it out.

I knew my best bet was Video Poker - the game where you either slowly lose your money, slowly win some money, or end up more or less breaking even.

And breaking even's what I was after, so I loaded up Bonus Poker and got to work.

It happened within the first ten minutes and it felt completely surreal.

Not only because I'd never seen a Royal Flush in the flesh before. But because I wasn't even chasing it. I'd already scored some cash (thanks to landing a few Four-of-a-Kinds in quick succession) and I was just trying to keep it rolling. So when I held a few Spades it was in the hopes of getting a bog standard Flush - and if there happened to be a King and Queen in the mix, so be it. 

But then win kept climbing and climbing, it sunk in. The Royal Flush isn't a myth - I'd actually hit it. 

The sheer thrill of seeing it on the screen - combined with the rush of multiplying my initial ten cent bet by 800 (!) - made my mind go blank for a few seconds. My heart rate went up. I could feel a teensy dose of adrenaline coursing through my veins.

Absolutely incredible.

I'd set out to make $20, but I'd already exceeded that. And now I'd topped it off with an $80 win. 

I knew what I had to do next.

First, the responsible thing: immediately cash out that $80 so it would show up in my bank account in two to three business days.

And then the slightly less responsible thing: play some more and play a bit more boldly. 

Defying the Odds

With about $55 left in the tank, I moseyed on over to the big leagues: Ultimate X Poker 5 Play.

 

Except I didn't turn on the bonus feature, so I guess it was more like the middle leagues.

 

But still: playing five hands at a time. Still wagering only a dime on each, but at 50 cents a play, it was a bit more than I'd normally risk.

 

Things were going fairly well for me. I was on Bonus Poker again and hitting enough low Four-of-a-Kinds to make up for the lower pay on Flushes and Full Houses.

  

And then it happened again.

 

Somehow, one of the five hands I had on screen had turned over a straight row from 10 to Ace - all Clubs.

 

Another Royal Flush. 

 

Another $80 payout - plus a few extra coins for the other hands that hit something.

 

I should've taken a screenshot. But I think I was so bewildered that it didn't even occur to me. So you'll just have to picture it in your mind's eye.

 

I immediately cashed out everything I'd made on that run ($130) and looked up the stats.

 

The odds of hitting a Royal Flush in video poker is a bit worse than 1 in 40,000.

 

The odds of hitting it twice within one hour - well, I don't have a clue what it is, but it has to be extremely low. Not impossible, but damn improbable.

 

The House Always Wins (Except When I Do)

I set out with $20 of funny money and turned it into $210 of cold, hard cash. That's a good night and quite possibly the most money I've ever made in a single hour.

 

So I was riding that high for quite a while - and trying really, really hard not to think of how much money it would've been if I had wagered anything higher than 10 cents.

 

I haven't seen a Royal Flush since that night (again, 1 in 40,000 hands, so it might take a while). But hitting it twice did change the way I play.

 

It made the Royal Flush feel achievable. Still rare of course, but in my reach. So now I do chase after it - when it's reasonable.

And with any luck, I'll actually catch one again - or even two in a row because apparently that can happen.

 

Tally

Wagered This Session: $0 (promo cash only)

Profit This Session: $210

Total Profit Overall: $160.96 

 

Thanks for reading and feel free to support my nonsense.

Promo Bustout: Blowing $20 on Instant Wins

About a week ago, I'm dicking around online, as I like to do. And what do I see? 

A big purple banner announcing a quick ALC promotion: $20 of promo cash for anyone willing to spend $20 on Instant Win games. 

Hot diggity! 

Not just the promise of money, but my favorite kind: free money!

Okay, well, it's not so much free money as free(ish) "money" because you I gotta pay to get it (so not quite free) and I can only use it on the ALC site (so more like a gift card than money).

But none of that matters. Gambling $20 so I can gamble another $20 is a good deal to me, so I deposited the cash and got down to business.

For it to count toward the promo, the dough had to be spent on Instant Wins only. So none of the slots on the Casino section of the site, and no video poker either (💔).  

So I made a quick plan. I'd decide ahead of time exactly how much money I'd spend on which games. That way, I wouldn't be tempted to double down on my wins or chase my losses. Just spending my 20 and promptly walking away without putting in a penny more.

Since I'd be getting the money right back, I was kind of tempted to blow it all on a few big moves. Like throw around some $5 bets and see if anything comes of it. Or pop the whole thing on a single game of Crossword Spin.

 

But I'm not one for huge bets. I prefer keeping my wagers modest and frequent.

Plus, the hope is that I'd walk away with at least a portion of my investment here. And doing a Crossword Spin means there's only a 1 in 2.5 chance of that actually happening.

I decided my best chance would be to start small-ish and then round it out with a few mid-sized bets. So here's how it all shook out. 

Deuces Wild

First up, four 50 cent runs on Deuces Wild.  

The idea is simple: uncover 20 cards, if any of them are a 2 you win the corresponding amount. Uncover three Jokers and you get to play a bonus round.

And I saw no deuces, no triple jokers, just a whole lot of nothing.

So, off to a rough start.  

Total Wins: $0

 

Super Cash Bolt 

After that fail, I moved to Super Cash Bolt for another quad of 50 cent rounds.

And this time, I actually managed to get a win. A full row of lemons, which would normally pay 50 cents but because I scored a couple of Prize Boosters, it bumped up to a whole dollar.

(It wouldn't let me take a clean screenshot for some reason, so you'll just have to take my word for it.) 

That's half my money back. Which is quite decent when you're playing lotto games.  

Total Wins: $1

AL Cash Expander

Not much luck on my first few bucks, so I moved on to the slot-style games. Starting with AL Cash Expander, because expanding my cash is exactly what I'm aiming for here.

 

I went for 10 spins at 20 cents a pop. And three of them actually paid off - but for less than a dollar altogether.

Slightly less decent than what I got on Super Cash Bolt, but better than coming out empty handed. 

Total Wins: $0.72

 

Monopoly Progressive Jackpots

Same deal here: 10 runs for 20 cents each. Except this time, the smug little Monopoly guy is watching me gamble.

They say if you want to become rich, you should surround yourself with rich people. But I guess that's B.S. because even with that top hatted son of a bitch right there in the corner, I only got 24 pennies out of these spins. 

Total Wins: $0.24 

 

Bingo 

The slots-style Instant Wins weren't coughing up any big wins. So I decided to spend my last $12 on the ones that are more like digital scratch-offs.

Normally, they're not worth your time. Not because you can't win at them or anything like that, but because the tactile experience of playing a physical scratch ticket is so much more satisfying. If you're going to blow the money anyway, might as well treat yourself to the real deal.  

But this is a special situation, so digital it is. 

Starting with a single $2 round of Bingo.

Pay your money, watch the balls pop out, and cross your fingers that the numbers will match those on your card.

And enough of them did, because I got a single line on card #3. The lowest payout you can get (other than $0), so I broke even.

Which at this point, felt like a true victory. Genuinely excited to just get my money back.

Total Win: $2 

 

Casino Roll 

A completely random pick. If Casino Roll ever was a scratcher, it's since been discontinued because I haven't seen anything like it around time.

But it reminded me of the new $20,000 Casino (except it wouldn't be able to take me to the cleaners) and the odds of winning something were pretty decent at 1 in 2.7. So I gave it a whirl.

A short-lived whirl. I wound up on the wrong side of the odds and I'd sunk $3 in one go - and without the satisfaction of putting coin to ticket.

Total Win: $0

 

Lucky 7 

After that smackdown, I decided the next $3 would be better spent on three goes at Lucky 7.

This one has a physical counterpart. It's the only $1 scratch-off available so it's a nice way to round out any purchase. And the first time I did one, I won $7 on that sucker, so I have a certain fondness for it.  

For a buck, you get to uncover a 3x3 grid. If you get 3 identical dollar amounts anywhere on there, that's your prize. If you uncover a 7, you get a cool $7 (and if you uncover four, you can take $7,777 to the bank - can you imagine?)

Now we're talking!

No sevens, but I got $10 on my first round, which is about as sweet as you can expect a loonie ticket to be.

Normally, I'd move on after a 10x win. But I committed to three rounds, so three rounds I did.

And as you can expect, the last two were losers. Still, I came out on top and that's what counts.  

Total Wins: $10 

 

Set For Life

Four bucks left to go.

And there's only one scratch-off that costs exactly that much.

So, I ended this Instant Wins session by nurturing my love/hate relationship with Set For Life.

Rats.

Total Win: $0

 

So Long and Thanks for All the Promo Cash

I knew Set For Life was a mistake. I probably would've done better with four more rounds of Lucky 7. Or maybe two more shots at Bingo.

But gambling's no fun if you wallow on your mistakes. So I brushed myself off and took stock of how it all went.

Grand Total: $13.96

So in one way, I lost a little over $6 here.

But if you look at it from a different angle, this means I paid just $6 to get $20 in promo cash. 

That's some money moves right there.

Or at least it will be once I gamble away the promo money and turn it into cold hard cash (or lose it all trying). 

But that's a story for next time. 

 

Tally

Wagered This Session: $20

Profit This Session: -$6.04

Total Profit Overall: -$49.04

 

Thanks for reading and feel free to support my nonsense.