[QUOTE=Schnitte]
I was under the impression that they solved this problem by selling several series of tickets parallelly. If the number of claimed top prizes makes buying a ticket unattractive, they’d issue one (or more) new series of tickets under the same prize scheme. That way, they can make sure there’s always a sufficient number of remaining top prizes available.
That’s, however, just what I figured out when thinking about that problem. The web site you link to indicates that at least in Ohio, it’s done differently.
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Not in parallel, but sequentially. The sale of a given scratchoff goes on for a period of time, after which no more are sold, although prizes can be claimed for a given number of months. A new series is then started under basically the same name with the same rules, so people who always buy a certain name of scratchoff ticket can buy what they are used to.
One of the thing that was done to keep peoples’ interest is the top prize drawing. They basically offer two of the top prize. One is a direct win by scratchoff, the other when scratched off shows “TPD” for top prize drawing. In other words, not the top prize, but a chance at the top prize, and there can be more of those given out than the one direct scratchoff prize. It loses the instantaneous win, which is what attracts people to scratchoffs, but people can feel that they still have a chance at the top money.