3 ms·
>One could argue that scratch-off games are inherently unfair There's nothing inherent about scratch-off games that forces sellers to be in a privileged positi
by DINKDINK 9y ago
>One could argue that scratch-off games are inherently unfair
There's nothing inherent about scratch-off games that forces sellers to be in a privileged position about whether tickets they are selling are winners. If the buyer supplies a source of entropy that they commit to, the ticket has a it's own entropy.
- logfromblammo 9y agoThe game provider knows the scratch-off ticket is a winner or a loser the instant that it is printed. It now has to come up with some way to prevent that knowledge from reaching all the retailers in their distribution network and all the players. Every such scheme is potentially flawed and subject to attack. I reference the McDonald's "Monopoly Game", that was subject to insider cheating for years before it was discovered. Scratch-off tickets are subject to similar attacks, as well as simple mathematical strategy attacks that transfer gambling advantages from naive players to well-informed players, skewing the published odds.
- DINKDINK 9y ago>The game provider knows the scratch-off ticket is a winner or a loser the instant that it is printed. Yes, this is the way it works today but it isn't required by design. My reply illustrates how you can have a "scratch-off" game where the game provider doesn't know if the ticket is a winner when the ticket is printed.