Be Smart About Buying Texas Lottery Scratch Offs

There's some wisdom to the thinking that if you save the money you would spend on Texas Lottery Scratch Offs in an interest bearing account, you'd end up with more money than you would win playing Scratch Offs. Take the" Mega Bucks" Scratch Off game as an example. According to the Texas Lottery Commission's Mega Bucks web site, you can win over $10.3 million in prizes in this game. Each pack of tickets has 125 tickets and the guaranteed total prize amount per pack is $131. Each ticket costs $2 and there are about 7,959,875 "Mega Bucks" Scratch Off tickets. The odds of winning the top prize, in this case $20,000, are about 1 in 1,000,000.

But hey, playing Scratch Offs is fun. I like putting a few in my kids Christmas stockings.

I'm not trying to convince you to stop buying Scratch Offs. But if you want to buy Scratch Off tickets be smart about it.

It's easy to grab a Texas Lottery Scratch Off. You can find them next to the cash register at most convenience stores and in Scratch Off dispensing machines. This point of sale positioning of Scratch Off tickets makes them perfect for an impulse buy. You're at the cash register paying for your purchase and think that maybe you'll buy a Scratch Off and get lucky. Ranging in price from $1 a ticket to more than $20 per ticket and with tantalizing names like "Mega Jumbo Bucks" and "Gold Fever," it's easy to be tempted to buy tickets that offer multiple chances to win huge jackpots.

Did you know that Scratch Offs continue to be sold long after the top prizes have been claimed? When you impulsively decide to plop down your $5 for a "$50,000 Joker's Wild" ticket for example, you'll just be throwing your money away since the top prizes for that Scratch Off have already been claimed.

To keep from tossing your money away do some quick research before you buy your next Lottery Scratch Off. Go to the Texas Lottery Scratch Off page and find your game. If it's a featured game or a new game, you'll see it on the main Scratch Off page. To find the other Scratch Off games, click the dollar amount icon to view a list of available Scratch Off tickets for the price you want to pay.

For example, if you want to buy a $7 "Lucky 7's" Scratch Off ticket, click the $7 icon, then click the "Lucky 7's" icon. You can view a chart of all of the prize amounts for that game, the number of prizes already claimed, and the number or prizes remaining. If you find that the top prizes have been claimed already, find a different Scratch Off ticket to buy.

If you don't want to crawl around the Texas Lottery Scratch Off site, check out Lotto Crawler. Lotto Crawler checks the remaining prizes and using their algorithm presents you with the Scratch Offs with the best odds of winning. Lotto Crawler also checks Scratch Offs in states other than Texas.

Why buy your Scratch Offs blindly? Doing some research before you buy your Scratch Offs won't guarantee that you'll win, but you'll stand a better chance. And if you do win, put your winnings in an interest bearing account. It would be sad to win $100 only to spend it on more Scratch Offs and lose your winnings.