According to Dr. Don Catlin, author of The Lottery Book: The Truth Behind the Numbers, scratch-off tickets are one of the better bets offered by state lotteries. The scratch-off tickets may not have the life-changing jackpots offered by the lottery drawings, but they do usually return more of the money collected in the prize pool to the players and they give you a better chance of winning something.
A scratch-off game could be as simple as scratching off the covering to reveal an amount won or a message like “Game Over,” but that wouldn’t be much fun. So state lotteries devised little games you could play to make the process more fun. The game has no effect on your results. It’s just an interesting way to reveal the results.
A few years ago, my home state of New Jersey introduced a web-based scratch-off game based on the Slotto online game and casino slot machine. When you scratched off the covering on the ticket, you revealed an access code. You then went to the Slotto game area on the New Jersey Lottery’s website and entered the access code to start your Slotto game. The number of points you won playing Slotto determined how much money you won.
A similar concept called PlayAway from GameLogic is now being tested in Nevada and is approved for use in Mississippi and New Jersey. Players visit a casino with the GameLogic system to purchase PlayAway tickets. At their leisure, in their hotel rooms, or in their homes, players access the casino’s website, enter the access codes on their tickets, and choose from the many games available on the site to find out how much they won. Players then have to return to the casino to collect their winnings and purchase more PlayAway tickets.
PlayAway may sound like Internet gambling, but it isn’t. No wagering, redemption, or other financial transactions take place online. Those activities take place in the casino, where those transactions are legal. Furthermore, the outcome of the game is predetermined and none of the actions players make while playing the games affects the outcome.
Like New Jersey’s Slotto online game, the PlayAway game you play online is just an entertaining way to learn what that outcome is. Because the outcome has already been determined and cannot be changed, nothing the player does while playing the game online can cause the outcome to be any better or worse than the predetermined outcome. The PlayAway game, according to the GameLogic site, is “simply a display device.”
Consider this analogous scenario. You go to your favorite casino and buy a keno ticket. Later in the day, after the drawing, you log on to the casino’s website to check the numbers that were drawn and how much you won. This is exactly how PlayAway works in Nevada and in other Class III casinos. This PlayAway system is based on keno drawings — that is, keno drawings are used to determine how much each PlayAway ticket wins. In Class II casinos, most Native American casinos, the PlayAway system is based on a pull-tab ticket game.
GameLogic already has an amazing variety of games available and promises to release five to 10 more games per quarter. In fact, over half of the company’s employees are in game development.
You can check out the games available by clicking on the “Try Our Games Now” button at www.gamelogic.com. There are currently 10 single slot machine games with names like Peg Leg’s Blunder, Crystal Ball Cash, Cash Coop and Pit Crew Payout. If you prefer video slots, you can choose from Jackpot Jonah’s Winner Whale, Pyramid Payout and Crackpot Jackpot in the Multi-Line section.
Somewhat more interesting are the games in the multi-spin section. In Grapes of Cash, you have 10 spins on a slot machine with fruit symbols to win at least 1,000 points, which gives you the opportunity to spin the prize wheel to win a cash amount. Cash SpinOut and Winsome Fruit are the same game with different names. They’re both a combination of slot machine and video poker machine. You have seven spins to get five of the same fruit symbol on the payline. You’re able to hold up to four reels on each spin. If you get five of the same symbol on the payline or the joker lands on the payline, you get to spin the prize wheel to win a cash amount.
The best games are in the Cards and the Puzzles & Dice sections. In Cash Line Poker, you play video poker to earn cash lines. When the video poker game is over, the number of cash lines you earned determines the number of video poker hands you get to reveal in the second-level game. Winning hands in the second-level game earn cash.
In Money Hand Blackjack, you play blackjack to earn Money Hand cards. When the blackjack game is over, you choose the number of Money Hand cards you won from the displayed deck. You then flip the cards over one at a time. If you have a combination of cards that matches one of the combinations of aces and other cards in the paytable that is now displayed, you win the amount of money associated with that combination.
There are also PlayAway games based on Pai Gow Poker and Solitaire.
The cleverest games are in the Puzzles & Dice section. These are games that aren’t based on any card or casino game you’ve played before. In Three Blind Dice, you choose what number will be rolled on each of three dice. After you’ve made your choices, three blind mice roll the dice. You win if any mouse rolls the number you predicted.
In Win Pop, you choose balloons that are popped by a dart thrown by an invisible thrower. You win any dollar amounts revealed. For bingo lovers, there are two good bingo-based games. And there’s even a game like Pac Man.
My favorite game, though, is Casino Safe Cracker. In the first part of this game, you play a game in which bricks of different colors get added to the screen from the bottom. Your goal is to try to clear the screen of the bricks by clicking on groups of bricks with the same color. That group of bricks then disappears and the remaining bricks shift down and over to fill in the void. If there was a stick of TNT in the group, it gets added to your cache. In the second part of the game, you get to blow open one safe for each stick of TNT in your cache. You win the dollar amounts revealed.
One of the things I always disliked about scratch-off games is that the game can be over in a few seconds. New Jersey’s online Slotto game extended the length of time for the game considerably. A Slotto game could take a few minutes to play.
PlayAway does the same thing for casino wagers. If you choose your games carefully and stay away from the slot games and play the multi- level card and puzzle games, you can also stretch out the resolution of a casino wager from a few seconds to a few minutes and get much more play out of your gaming dollar. Just remember that the monetary outcome of the game has already been determined. The game is just an elaborate way to reveal that outcome.
