How to Make Scratch Off Cards to Play with Friends

When most people think of online games, online scratch-offs are not the first thing that pops to mind. However, many gambling sites carry digital versions of instant lottery picks inside their specialty real money casino games tabs. You can find these there along with famous lotto options like keno and bingo. While I enjoy playing scratch off-cards online, you probably want to learn to make your own — but first, let me give you a brief history of online scratch-off cards.

Consequently, it is not unusual for premium safe online casinos to offer up to a dozen or more online scratch-off products. Though these essentially feature the same basic rules as their physical counterparts, internet scratch-offs differ from traditional ones in that they often implement slot-like mechanics, a similar visual feel to reel spinners, and comparable return-to-player percentages.

It is interesting to note that scratchers or scratch-and-win tickets have been around for a long time. Yet, they only became a commercially viable gambling product thanks to technology invented by scientist John Koza. He was the one that pioneered computer-generated instant lottery ticket generation while working at the Scientific Games Corporation. In the 1980s, this gambling genre started to take off mainly because customers could immediately find out if they had won a prize or not at the retail outlet they purchased their tickets. They did not have to wait for a draw, like in classic lottery games.

Around the start of the 2010s, the first virtual scratchcard online casino games for real money popped up, utilizing Macromedia’s Flash or Java to simulate instant lottery action. They were also not exclusive to casino-style gambling sites, as they could get purchased at ones dedicated to lotteries only.

Still, despite their digital iterations, physical scratch tickets have remained substantially popular in most regions around the globe that allow their sale. Thanks to the magic of the internet, those into this type of gaming fun can not only enjoy them at mobile casino sites but can too learn how to make DIY scratchers at home.

Below are a few tips on how to get started creating them using items found at arts and crafts stores and local supermarkets.

How to Create a DIY Scratch Off Card

To create a scratcher, you will first need to find a paper that matches the color, weight, and texture of that used by instant lottery ticket manufacturers. Most suggest Domtar Bristol Cover White 67lb paper. Materials needed for this project include acrylic paint (preferably grey) and dish soap.

Dish soap makes acrylic paint scratchable.

The first step in this process is to design and print a scratch card template with our without symbols in it. Naturally, you must create multiple symbol combinations for each ticket, which you can do so manually on a computer or by hand. Generating random symbol combinations requires dedicated software that most people are not privy to or know how to locate online.

Once you have your cards printed and ready, you will need to mix acrylic paint and dish soap in a bowl. The ratio used should be one part soap and two parts paint. Stir this concoction until it has become a uniform blend. The next step is covering the scratch-off areas with your freshly created mix. Apply a thin layer first, and let it dry for a while. Then put three more coats on until the covering is entirely opaque. Again, let it dry, and that’s about it.

Once the dish soap and paint blended mix has gotten applied four times and dried, it should be thick enough to be scratchable. It is as simple as that. Hence, you can create your own instant lottery game in less than an hour by downloading online templates or copying symbol patterns present in online scratch-off card casino reviews.

How Scratch Cards Work

Scratch cards work more or less identically to slots concerning how they supply rewards. They also feature a symbol grid, often a 3×3 one. That is the standard layout, though some games implement ones that boast a higher number of symbol positions. Three identical tokens must get found inside the game’s grid structure for a player to win a reward. Usually,

Online scratch tickets.

unlike in old-school slots, the matching tokens do not need to be on the same line to produce a win.

An opaque layer of paint covers the ticket’s symbol area during the sale. It must get scratched off to reveal the symbols underneath it. That can only happen once a player has purchased his scratcher. Beforehand, he has no idea of the value of the ticket he has bought. All gambling/lottery operators release a specific number of tickets, with only a small number featuring rewards. In most cases, the operator needs to sell around 30%-50% of those in circulation to produce the entire prize pool for a specific series of issued scratchcards.

At online casino USA sites, most online scratch-off games implement the match-three-to-win system outlined above. As a rule of thumb, in the majority of these games, the RTPs in play fall in the 85% to 95% range. So, internet scratchcard gamblers stand a decent shot of winning a reward. They face odds that are far better than those offered by ticketed instant lotto games sold at gas stations and kiosks.