Here’s an interesting point that a player in central Iowa raised with us this week: The woman said she likes to play lottery scratch games and found the security coating on one of the tickets she recently purchased difficult to scratch off. Here are the details we shared with her:
Several factors can come into play with how “scratchable” you may find the security coating on a particular lottery ticket. The surface on which you’re scratching the ticket can have an impact. So can the item you’re using to scratch the ticket, ie., a coin, nail file, etc. The security coating itself also can vary from game to game, and we monitor our tickets for quality-compliance purposes in that regard.
That’s a long-winded way of saying that while a variety of factors can be involved, we’re sorry if the process of playing one of our tickets has frustrated you! As I said in my reply to the woman this week, please feel free to reach out to us if you have feedback and thoughts. Player input lets us know how we’re doing.
In this particular instance, I passed the details she had shared along to our Security Division so they can monitor the situation and be on the look-out for any similar inquiries.
In addition to the information I shared with the woman, I also sent to her a couple of the plastic scratchers we have here at the lottery that you can use to play our scratch games. They’re ergonomically designed to fit your thumb as you scratch off the security coating on a ticket! We have the scratchers in our regional offices around the state and often hand them out at lottery events, so ask us about them if you’d like one.
The right tools can make all the difference!
Hi, Daniel, Vicky and Shanna. Thank you for your comments here on the blog! As I said in my entry about our scratch tickets, if you ever have a concern about a particular ticket, please feel free to reach out to us and share your thoughts. We'll be glad to help. And if you would like a ticket scratcher, please send an email to our Webmaster account at [email protected] and let us know that you'd like a ticket scratcher. If you can provide your home address in the email, we can send a couple out to you.
Posted by: Mary Neubauer | May 18, 2017 at 02:07 PM
I too have had a problem scratching some of my favorite tickets, I would love a scratcher, I have thrown away a few tickets because u scratched the cash 2 win box too hard after I found it did not scratch off easily. How can I get one? Thanks.
Posted by: Shanna wanton | May 17, 2017 at 05:52 PM
We have had the same problem with some cards not wanting to scratch off. We mostly play the $2 Bingo cards. It seems my dad always gets the Most difficult ones unfortunately.
I wouldn't mind getting some of those lottery scratchers for the 3 of us. I've had one before and they are more comfortable to use and work better then a coin.
Posted by: Vicki Carter | May 16, 2017 at 10:12 PM
It happens a heck of a lot more than reported. Quality of most tickets are good but the bad ones really suck!
Posted by: Daniel Kirkeby | May 16, 2017 at 04:35 PM