The Scratchlotter system, also known as scratch cards, has John Koza as co-inventor
Rob Alexander questions John Koza about scratch lotteries in a new interview
Rob asks John Koza about the origins of scratch lotteries – Was it a scientific venture or a market product?
John the Goat: There, I had been involved with a company in the 1960s that produced a type of scratch tickets for supermarkets and gas stations
Scratching lottery tickets was an extremely popular marketing method during 60- and the 70s
At that time, the company produced games with a certain chance of winning, where every ticket had the possibility of becoming a winner if the player scratched in the right places
So the player would scratch just a few spots and if they got the right symbols on those spots they won a prize (Compare Sweden's Trisslotter)
We actually did some of the games in the UK, Europe and the USA
So these were an extra safe form of commercial gambling
Commercial games generated an average of only a few cents in profit per ticket, which made them relatively safe as there were no large sums of money to be won
During our time at the company, we visited some of the state lotteries to see if they would be interested in including this type of instant win game, as the existing lotteries only had one draw per week
We suggested games with pre-printed winning tickets into their range
These games were called “controlled games” (such were the terms used then)
The states were unwilling to consider a game based on probability, because it was considered too risky
Unfortunately, the company I worked for went bankrupt 1972
Then my partner left [Dan Bower] and I out and tried to continue to sell this type of lottery to various state lotteries
We had a lot of success with that
Rob asks John Koza what he thinks was the reason for scratchlotter's success
I think it was because of the instant win
People like to get an immediate reward bonus tip casino
They were not required to wait days or weeks to find out if they had won
That was the big advantage of scratch lotteries