ScratchSmarter Odds Visualizer

The scratch-off odds the lottery doesn't want you to see

Side Project

Data & Analytics

Finance

Thanks for checking out the Odds Visualizer. What inspired it: I've been running ScratchSmarter for years, and the question I get more than any other is some version of "which scratch-off ticket should I actually buy?" Every state lottery is legally required to publish the odds — but they bury them in PDFs, format them in tables most people can't parse, and slap "1 in 4.5" on the front of every ticket as if that means something. It doesn't. Most of those "wins" just give you your dollar back. The real question — how rare are the prizes worth winning, and are they even still claimable? — isn't answerable from the data the lottery hands you. The problem I wanted to solve: Make the actual prize structure of a scratch-off ticket visible in one glance. Not a table. Not a percentage. A picture. You should be able to look at a game and immediately see "oh, almost every winner here is a $1 ticket, and the two big prizes are already claimed." How the process evolved: I started over-engineering it. My first prototype was going to be a React/Node app on a separate server with a fancy chart library. I scrapped all of that. The final version is plain PHP, MySQL, and vanilla JavaScript running on the same SiteGround host as the rest of the site — and it loads faster and is easier to maintain than anything I would have built with a framework. The hardest part wasn't the code; it was the sizing math. Linear scaling made the rare prizes invisible. Pure log scaling made them too prominent. I ended up with a power curve (t^2.5) that gives you dramatic contrast without losing the small wins entirely. It's free, works on mobile, and covers 40+ U.S. state lotteries with daily data refreshes. My ask: If you have a state I cover, try your local game and tell me what surprised you. I want to know if the visualization "clicks" the way it does for me. — Dave