Arbusers

5-6 years ago I watched Adam Kucharski's video :youtube.com/watch?v=658xlubwnDc

Please do read his book - it is very informative about gambling, especially the exchange, automated trading et.c

There were stories for scratch cards. Meanwhile I was discussing with friend of mine, who worked as a support for a local company selling scratch cards, who said that everything is rigged. I asked for more info and he told me that every time where there was a falling interest and falling sales in a particular city/location - immediately there was a big win in that particular location. And people started buying scratch cards (SC) again. And it hit me - off course it should be like that.

First things first:
1. Yes I know the mathematics of SC - in my country the RTP is just 50%. Yes, negative EV of 50%. It is madness, but please, do read till the end
2. BUT the point of every organizer of this type of games is to maximize profit. Which means selling as many SC as possible. Which means the game continues as long as it can.
3. According to 2, and the story told by Adam, worst case scenario is the biggest winnings to be won at the beginning/ of the game/selling. Or clustering winnings at particular location. Economic sense says that this is game over, people won't buy tickets any longer.
4. In case point 3 to be avoided - the Organizer should/will/do keep biggest winning out of public for a while. There will be used for a carrot when needed. Which mean that the Organizer know which SC are winner and which losers.
5. If you don't believe me - just buy SC until one wins, and the go to the shop for a pay for the winning. You will notice that the person at the shop won't even look at the card, he will scan it with a barcode scanner, and say here is your winning sir. Which means that there is a database which contains every single cards. At least in my home country is like that.

And here is the rub - during COVID with nothing better to do I decided to reverse-engineer the organizer's database. Started buying SC is batches of 50-100 pieces. I gathered around 1500 cards, and o boy it is really annoying and pain to scratch them all.

Here ar my finding. I am posting here, because this idea is put to rest for last 2-3 years, and want to refresh it somehow.
1. All SC have unique numbers! This unique number is not that which is visible outside. In my country there are two fields which say: DO NOT ERASE/SCRATC. If you do - this SC is NULL, and won't be paid out. Most logical thing to do was to scratch them to see what is behind.
It turned out that one of the fields contains the REAL number of the SC. The other contains a code/digits.
2. First erased field i realized is strictly correlated with the SC number. It is like and odometer of a car. 7th digit in the outside correlates with 1st in REAL NUMBER. It is pretty easy to figure that out.
3. The more interesting part was the second erased field. It contains 7 digits which seems to be random. But later I realized they are not. Please check the attached file to see it.
All losing SC have 0 or L at the end. And then I made a suggestion which turned out to be right one. This last digit has to show which Category of wins the SC belongs. (1 - return ticket price, 2 - 1.5 SC price, 3 - 2times SC price and so on). And as you can see from the attached file it is as it is. Ye sit is stupid to not be paid, but still this is the right decision in order to understand how it works.
4. And the all sports returned to TV and didn't bother to pursue this idea. I am sharing it for a different point of view, and if someone want to continue - please do.
- I don't think is feasible in the long term. Even if you manage to break/reengineer the database It is very difficult to find SC from a particular game - you have to go all over the country to buy just winning tickets. You have to scan through thousands and thousands of SC.
- Even if I found bigger winnings - I wont be able to recognize them. As shown in pt.3 - I have to know how a SC with 10000 EUR looks like. I know for 2-3-4 EUR the pattern/correlation. In order to know I have to have scratched one before. I don't think I will erase 10K EUR winning.

So here it is. I will send the database/xls file with the numbers to anyone. It is not a secret.

Maybe I am missing something, but what is the point of figuring out the serial number pattern if the number is behind "do not scratch"? Even knowing which serial numbers are winning you need to scratch the "do not scratch" part which means you need to buy the SC first and esentially take negative EV.

Yes, you are right. I missed a whole point of the post:
5. I do think there is a direct relationship (correlation) between Number on the SC and ----> real number ---> Win/Lose. I just don't have enough data to support it. It is based on the assumption that people are very bad at generating true randomness. Winning/losing tickets should be generated with some kind of random generator, but still - there is no true randomness when people are involved.


Please check the attached file, the one before something went wrong:

ibb.co/hZ2pqhs

Some 25 years ago I had my first experience with SC when they were introduced to the country by the state monopoly. At first it was fun and interesting. Notice that by that time I had no previous experience with gambling at all, but I was very good and quick in understanding stats and probabilities.
The experience took place at a betting shop and I realised that I was losing disproportionally to the real odds of the game. So I started wondering what was wrong. At first I thought the shop owner was using infrareds to determine the winning SC and keep them for him self, but then I though that would be very easy and everyone could do that.
In the end I took some SC and I put them under the microscope in my University. Guess what I found.
All SC had a tiny and precise dot, in reality a small hole that would allow to see if it was a winning or losing. With naked eye or a magnifying glass, you wouldn't be able to see it. But under the microscope it was clear they were using a laser to create this tiny hole. Obviously they knew where to target according to the typeface used by the time.
Thus they (I believe it was the shop owner or someone in the supply chain) were only allowing small winnings to the clients of the shop, while they were keeping anything decent for themselves. The game was rigged.
Maybe another day I will describe the first bet I placed in a betting shop.

Thanks for sharing the experience arbusers

I want to be clear - I do understand that even though I managed to re-engineer the database and know with certainty which ticket is winning/losing - that does not mean I will be able to make money out of it. My conclusions were as same as arbusers's - the game is rigged. You can't just go through all shops scanning bar-codes with you laptop to sift through to see which ones to buy (yes most shop owners agreed to sift through their SC in order to choose particular numbers/series/SC) It is grueling to find series/games of SC - I checked all towns/villages in my region - and still there is not guarantee you will find even one single SC at given location. You have to be a reseller, or at least have a access to large numbers/batches of SC, have to contact local and regional managers. Other people have to be involved as well - they may know about it, or they may not. There is no other way around.

And it is not my point. I love Games. I love the ideas of cracking the tickets, beating the bookies, arbing, card counting etc. Most of us - arbers, sharps, card-counters, speculators love their craft. All I know that I will be doing it even for no money at all. It is part of me, it has always been. Stumbled upon the deck of SC the other day and decided to share it. A fresh/different point of view is always well come.

This story might interest you: entrepreneur.com/money-finance/this-retired-mathematician-won-26-million-from-state/361273