Scratchcard
Encyclopedia
Applications include cards sold for gambling
Gambling
Gambling is the wagering of money or something of material value on an event with an uncertain outcome with the primary intent of winning additional money and/or material goods...
(especially lottery
Lottery
A lottery is a form of gambling which involves the drawing of lots for a prize.Lottery is outlawed by some governments, while others endorse it to the extent of organizing a national or state lottery. It is common to find some degree of regulation of lottery by governments...
games and quizzes), free-of-charge cards for quizzes, fraudulent free cards encouraging calls to premium rate phone services, and to conceal confidential information such as PIN
Personal identification number
A personal identification number is a secret numeric password shared between a user and a system that can be used to authenticate the user to the system. Typically, the user is required to provide a non-confidential user identifier or token and a confidential PIN to gain access to the system...
s for telephone calling cards and other prepaid services.
In some cases the entire scratchable area needs to be scratched to see whether a prize has been won—the card is printed either to be a winner or not—or to reveal the secret code; the result does not depend upon what portions are scratched off. In other cases, some but not all areas have to be scratched; this may apply in a quiz, where the area corresponding to the right answer is scratched, or in some gambling applications where, depending on which areas are scratched, the card wins or loses. In these cases the card becomes invalid if too many areas are scratched. After losing one can scratch all areas to see if, how, and what one could have won with this card.
Technology
The scratchcard itself is simple: a card made of paper-based card, or plastic, with hidden information printed on it, covered by an opaque substance (usually latexLatex
Latex is the stable dispersion of polymer microparticles in an aqueous medium. Latexes may be natural or synthetic.Latex as found in nature is a milky fluid found in 10% of all flowering plants . It is a complex emulsion consisting of proteins, alkaloids, starches, sugars, oils, tannins, resins,...
) that can be scratched off relatively easily, while resistant to normal abrasion.
Origins
The original game tickets were produced using manual randomization techniques. In 1974 the American company Scientific Games CorporationScientific Games Corporation
Scientific Games Corporation is a New York City-based company that provides gaming solutions to lottery and gaming organizations worldwide. Products include instant lottery games, lottery gaming systems, terminals and service, and internet applications....
led by scientist John Koza
John Koza
John R. Koza is a computer scientist and a former consulting professor at Stanford University, most notable for his work in pioneering the use of genetic programming for the optimization of complex problems. He was a cofounder of Scientific Games Corporation, a company which built computer systems...
and retail promotions specialist Daniel Bower produced the first computer-generated instant lottery game. In 1987, Astro-Med, Inc. of West Warwick, Rhode Island, received the U.S. Patent
Patent
A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....
for the instant scratch-off lottery ticket.
Simple prize scratch cards require the player, for example, to scratch off three (or more) areas hiding numbers, symbols, etc. If all the items revealed are the same, a prize has been won. More complicated scratchcards have several different ways to win on one card. Other scratchcards involve matching symbols, pictures or words, or are adaptations of popular (card-)games such as blackjack
Blackjack
Blackjack, also known as Twenty-one or Vingt-et-un , is the most widely played casino banking game in the world...
, poker
Poker
Poker is a family of card games that share betting rules and usually hand rankings. Poker games differ in how the cards are dealt, how hands may be formed, whether the high or low hand wins the pot in a showdown , limits on bet sizes, and how many rounds of betting are allowed.In most modern poker...
or Monopoly
Monopoly
A monopoly exists when a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular commodity...
. Games are also tied to popular themes such as Harley Davidson, Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball is the highest level of professional baseball in the United States and Canada, consisting of teams that play in the National League and the American League...
, NASCAR
NASCAR
The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing is a family-owned and -operated business venture that sanctions and governs multiple auto racing sports events. It was founded by Bill France Sr. in 1947–48. As of 2009, the CEO for the company is Brian France, grandson of the late Bill France Sr...
, the National Hockey League
National Hockey League
The National Hockey League is an unincorporated not-for-profit association which operates a major professional ice hockey league of 30 franchised member clubs, of which 7 are currently located in Canada and 23 in the United States...
, Marvel Comics
Marvel Comics
Marvel Worldwide, Inc., commonly referred to as Marvel Comics and formerly Marvel Publishing, Inc. and Marvel Comics Group, is an American company that publishes comic books and related media...
and FIFA World Cup
FIFA World Cup
The FIFA World Cup, often simply the World Cup, is an international association football competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of Fédération Internationale de Football Association , the sport's global governing body...
.
There are currently two major manufacturers of game tickets: Scientific Games Corporation
Scientific Games Corporation
Scientific Games Corporation is a New York City-based company that provides gaming solutions to lottery and gaming organizations worldwide. Products include instant lottery games, lottery gaming systems, terminals and service, and internet applications....
, with production facilities in the USA, Chile, UK, Germany, Canada, Brazil and Australia; and Pollard Banknote, with production facilities in the USA and Canada. There are several other smaller manufacturers in North America, Europe and Asia.
Popularity
Scratchcards are a very popular form of gambling due to their low cost and the opportunity to win instantly, as opposed to waiting for a drawing like many lotteries. There is a trend towards more expensive scratchcards (20-30USD) that have prizes in the millions of dollars. However, many such "instant" tickets sold in the US, especially in Massachusetts and New York, do not pay top prizes "instantly," but rather over many years, with no cash option.The popularity of lottery scratchcards has been increasing at a greater rate than any other form of lottery.
Predictability
In the twentyfirst century there have been attempts to increase the odds on finding a prize-winning card based on statisticsStatistics
Statistics is the study of the collection, organization, analysis, and interpretation of data. It deals with all aspects of this, including the planning of data collection in terms of the design of surveys and experiments....
, by tracking the amount of prize money won and cards sold to calculate accurate current odds. There have been a number of instances where a series of cards are still available although all major prizes have been won. Some lotteries make this information available to all free of charge to help promote their games This reduces the mathematical expectation of a win for the remaining cards; the return on investment becomes much worse. Hypothetically, large early payouts may exceed ultimate sales before expiration of the game card series. However, the low odds of winning - typically from less than 1 in 5 to about 1 in 2.5 - and players who buy cards unaware of the low return, offset these losses, so the lottery still makes a profit.
Second chance sweepstakes
Many state lotteries also run a second chance sweepstakesSweepstakes
The United States consumer sales promotion known as a sweepstake has become associated with marketing promotions targeted toward both generating enthusiasm and providing incentive reactions among customers by enticing consumers to submit free entries into drawings of chance...
in conjunction with the retail sale of state lottery scratch cards in an effort to increase consumer demand for scratch cards and to help control the litter
Litter
Litter consists of waste products such as containers, papers, wrappers or faeces which have been disposed of without consent. Litter can also be used as a verb...
problems associated with the improper disposal of non-winning lottery tickets. As lottery tickets and scratch cards are considered in the United States to be bearer instrument
Bearer instrument
A bearer instrument is a document that indicates that the owner of the document has title to property, such as shares or bonds. Bearer instruments differ from normal registered instruments, in that no records are kept of who owns the underlying property, or of the transactions involving transfer of...
s under the Uniform Commercial Code
Uniform Commercial Code
The Uniform Commercial Code , first published in 1952, is one of a number of uniform acts that have been promulgated in conjunction with efforts to harmonize the law of sales and other commercial transactions in all 50 states within the United States of America.The goal of harmonizing state law is...
, these scratch card promotions can be entered with non-winning tickets that are picked-up as litter.
Break opens
Break Opens, also known as breakopens, break open cards, strip tickets, nevada tickets or in some Bingo Halls as "pickles" are lottery or bingo cardBingo card
Bingo cards are used to play various bingo games, including U.S. style bingo and UK style Housie. Cards are usually made of cardboard or non-reusable paper, but more and more bingo halls are beginning to use computerized cards. Bingo cards are printed in various styles with randomized bingo numbers...
s on which there are concealed letters, numbers, or symbols that have been predetermined as winners. The cards are often made of cardboard and contain perforated cover window tabs, behind which the combinations are printed. The purchaser must "break open" the card, or pull up the pull-tab
Pull-tab
A pull-tab is a gambling ticket that is sold as a means to play a pull-tab game. The object of the ticket is to open the perforated windows on the back of the ticket and match the symbols inside the ticket to the winning combinations on the front of the ticket. The winning Pull-Tab ticket is turned...
s, to see the information printed within, and then must confirm with winning combinations printed on the back of the card, various cards may have come from the printer highlighted as winning under the tabs. The winning combination will be highlighted, making the identification of winning tickets easier.
Online gambling scratchcards
By around 2010 onlineOnline scratch card
Online scratch cards are the on-line version of the lottery scratch cards that are usually purchased at stands. Online scratch cards are played by clicking on designated areas to reveal information used to determine the card’s prize value...
versions of virtual "scratchcard" (not physical cards) gambling games which utilized Macromedia Flash and Java
Java (programming language)
Java is a programming language originally developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems and released in 1995 as a core component of Sun Microsystems' Java platform. The language derives much of its syntax from C and C++ but has a simpler object model and fewer low-level facilities...
to simulate scratching a card on a computer
Computer
A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...
were available. Virtual cards could be bought, and prizes collected, over an Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
connection.
Fraudulent practices
A widespread misuse of scratchcards is the free-of-charge distribution of cards offering a range of prizes, ranging from extremely low-value to very desirable; for example from time-limited discount vouchers redeemable only through a specified agent to cars. Cards always reveal that a prize has been won, but the nature and value of the prize can only be determined by phoning a premium rate telephone claim line costing a significant sum per minute. Calls to this number are designed by the promoter always to take several minutes, and the prize won is, in reality, always of far less value than the cost of the call, and usually not worth claiming. Regulatory authoritiesRegulatory Authority
A regulatory agency is a public authority or government agency responsible for exercising autonomous authority over some area of human activity in a regulatory or supervisory capacity...
for telephone services have been taking action against such schemes, issuing warnings and large fine
Fine
A fine is money paid usually to superior authority, usually governmental authority, as punishment for a crime or other offence. The amount of a fine can be determined case by case, but it is often announced in advance....
s.
Cards hiding confidential information
Scratchcards are a method of distributing confidential information, with no element of chance or skill. A common example is the phone card sold for a price which provides specified phone call usage. The card itself, unlike, say, a credit cardCredit card
A credit card is a small plastic card issued to users as a system of payment. It allows its holder to buy goods and services based on the holder's promise to pay for these goods and services...
, has no function in itself; it is simply a vehicle to inform the purchaser confidentially of the PIN required to make the phone calls paid for.