Here is one of the things Ginther knew about those scratchers. However, in Montana its with tickets. The game in the link is called Shake A Day. It’s one of the games in the Montana Lottery. It’s a much smaller scale game than what Ginther was playing but goes to show how to calculate the true cost of a scratcher/ticket.
https://www.montanalottery.com/en/view/treasureplay
https://www.montanalottery.com/en/view/treasureplay
View on www.montanalottery.com
Preview by Yahoo
You can see the cost to purchase a ticket is $3. The progressive meter starts at $1000.You can see the current amount in the progressive meter. I don’t know how much out of each ticket sold goes into the progressive meter but I’ve seen the meter go above $7000. On days where the meter gets up to about $4000 you can see the meter zinging as more and more people jump into the game because of the high number. There are lottery kiosks in the bars/casinos where people buy the tickets.
On the upper right you can see the odds of making a full house, four of a kind, and five of a kind (jackpot). You make a full house every 2.5 tickets and it pays $3. That’s a return of 40% (3/7.5). You make a four of a kind every 55.56 games and it pays $50. Thats a return of 30% (50/166.68). So the long term cost of a ticket is 3 X .30 = 90 cents. In effect its "buy 1 ticket get 2.3333 for free.
The frequency of the five of a kind (jackpot) is 5000. So the average cost to win the jackpot is $4500 (5000 X 90 cents). I’ve seen the meter on this game run well above $4500 many times.
I don’t play this game. My time is worth more on the machines. But I see other people play it when the number gets up. This one guy comes into the bar with a bucket. He fastens the bucket to the lottery kiosk then sticks bills into the machine. The tickets crank out into the bucket while he is sitting at the bar. Then he grabs the bucket and finds the winning tickets. He sticks the winning tickets back into the kiosk to get more tickets. Then hangs the bucket back on the machine, hits the printout button, and goes back to the bar.
—In vpF…@…com, <mickeycrimm@…> wrote :
I think Ginther used mathematical techniques that gave her a way better chance than anyone else had.