{"id":23196,"date":"2020-07-01T17:30:00","date_gmt":"2020-07-01T22:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/blog\/?p=23196"},"modified":"2023-02-17T04:27:24","modified_gmt":"2023-02-17T10:27:24","slug":"singleton-method-explained","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/blog\/singleton-method-explained\/","title":{"rendered":"How To Cheat Scratch Cards With The Singleton Method"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Scratchcards<\/a> are played by millions of people every day, with only a lucky few who strike gold and walk away an instant millionaire. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But are they really \u201clucky\u201d? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What if there was a way to improve your chances of winning<\/a>, or cheat the system?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, one man argues that scratchcards aren\u2019t\nactually random and even has a system to prove it: The Singleton Method.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s take a look how he discovered the popular Singleton\nMethod, how it works, and whether or not scratchcard manufacturers have done\nanything about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Statistician Finds Flaw In Manufacturing <\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In 2003, a geological statistician living in\nToronto named Mohan Srivastava was waiting for some files to download on his\ncomputer. To pass the time, he decided to play some old scratch cards that were\nlying around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He lost the first one but won a small amount of\ncash on a tic-tac-toe scratch card. It was this win that got him thinking about\nhow they\u2019re made.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What initially started as an interest about the\ncomputer\u2019s algorithm led to him effectively cracking the code of scratch\ncards.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Singleton Method Is Born<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Knowing that the tickets were mass-produced, he\nfigured that they couldn\u2019t be totally random since the manufacturers needed to\ncontrol the number of winning tickets. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a bit of research and ticket buying, he discovered\na flaw in the way scratchcards are made. Once he\u2019d worked it out, he was able\nto devise a method to cheat them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You might be expecting a highly complex system,\nthat only those with years of education at MIT would understand. This isn\u2019t the\ncase though. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, Srivastava\u2019s method simply relies on\nlooking to see which numbers are visible on a card before it\u2019s bought. You\ndon\u2019t need to scratch anything off, you just need to look at the numbers that\nare visible on the side, as they actually reveal essential information. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He found that if a number on the side appeared only\nonce, then it would almost always appear under the latex coating that needed to\nbe scratched off. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was looking for singletons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The below graphic by Toronto Star shows how his method works:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Tic-tac-toe
All you need to do is look out for those all-important singletons. [Image: Toronto Star]<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

So, as you can see, it was easy: those looking to win just needed to find cards that had a few single numbers on them. Cards with three singletons on the same row were pretty much always a winning ticket.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While this didn\u2019t guarantee a prize, it made the\nodds of winning much higher. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, Srivastava found that tickets he selected\nhad a 90 percent of chance of being winners. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Manufacturers Haven\u2019t Done Much <\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

While Srivastava reported his findings to the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation<\/a>, causing the tic-tac-toe game he studied to be pulled, they stated that it was simply caused by a design flaw in the game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But this wasn\u2019t just a trick Srivastava could use\non a single type of scratchcard, it was a method that could be used all over. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is because most scratchcards in North America\nare produced by just a few companies, so the bad practice extended to other\nscratchcards as well. Therefore, Srivastava\u2019s trick could be used to crack most\nscratchcards on the continent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He continued to test his method with other similar scratch\nlottery games. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Srivastava would later have tickets sent to him\nfrom Colorado, and he found that the same patterns were evident. He would also\nbuy more scratchcards in Toronto and once again discover the issue was still\nthere. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clearly the companies producing the tickets hadn\u2019t\nlearned from the information he had provided them with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But why haven\u2019t they done anything about it? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Srivastava, it\u2019s because they can\u2019t. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is because while the producers want everyone\nto think that scratchcards are a game of chance, it\u2019s almost impossible to make\nthem truly<\/em> random. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Companies use algorithms to ensure the correct\nnumber of winning cards are produced. If they didn\u2019t then they couldn\u2019t control\nthe number of winning tickets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it\u2019s these algorithms that give a way in for\nthose clever enough to exploit them, such as Srivastava. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Using The Singleton Method For Yourself<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

As yet, it\ndoesn\u2019t seem like the flaw has been fixed by scratchcard companies. In fact, as\nwe previously explained, it might be the case that the flaw can\u2019t be fixed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you want to use it, you should know that the\nSingleton Method only works on extended play scratchcards, where you scratch\noff numbers and match them with numbers already shown. This is because these\nvisible numbers are the key to this system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another\nthing to note is that you need to be able to see the fronts of scratchcards\nbefore you buy them, which isn\u2019t always possible. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On top of\nthis, there\u2019s no guaranteeing how much you\u2019ll win, so you could go to the\neffort of identifying and purchasing a winner, only to find that you\u2019ve only\nwon $2. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Srivastava did the math and didn\u2019t think it was worth his\ntime or money. But could you scale the process to make it worthwhile for you?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overall,\nhowever, it is still possible for this system to be used, providing the\nsituation is right. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why not try it the next time you head to the store to buy one?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Scratchcards are played by millions of people every day, with only a lucky few who strike gold and walk away …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":23230,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,3267],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nHow To Cheat Scratch Cards With The Singleton Method - Casino.org Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Singleton Method explained - learn how to use the Singleton Method to cheat at scratch cards, how it works and why nothing\u2019s been done to stop it.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/blog\/singleton-method-explained\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How To Cheat Scratch Cards With The Singleton Method\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Singleton Method explained - 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