Comment by my_throwaway23
5 days ago
This reminds me of a (dirt cheap - about 0.5€) scratch ticket available when I was growing up. The number of winning tickets, as specified on the ticket, was 51%. The 2% up from the usual 49% meant you won more than you lost. The smallest prize was about twice the cost of the ticket. We would run to the store on our lunch break, buy a couple of tickets, rinse and repeat a few times, and have money for whatever food we wanted for the day.
(and no, you wouldn't be able to farm them - the store only carried X amount of tickets, and they usually sold out quickly)
I don’t understand how this lotto would make any money.
A limited availability loss leader product meant to normalize lottery tickets to young customers.
Fun fact, at that time the gambling industry was regulated in Sweden, and as such all games (and otherwise - e.g. scratch tickets) was all sold by the government monopoly.
As to the reason why they would have a loss leader in an organisation that actively worked to minimize gambling - beats me.
The scratch ticket was later renamed, and with the rename they reduced the number of winning tickets. It was at 48.5% (or thereabouts) last I checked.
The monopoly has now been abolished, largely due to pressure from digital services.
Oh I see. Gross.