Offline Scratchcards

Offline scratchcards are those that you might buy from an offline retailer such as a convenience store. Offline scratchcards are sometimes referred to as ‘traditional’ scratchcards because they were the inspiration for the online scratchcard games that we all know and love in the 21st century.

Offline scratchcards are often produced by lottery organisations, but they can also be offered by charitable organisations as long as they have the proper licence to do so. The aim of all offline scratchcards is to raise money from ticket sales, and the proceeds usually go to a good cause of some kind.

Whilst there are many different offline scratchcard games, almost all of them can be categorised as a scratch-off or a pull-tab. A scratch-off scratchcard (also known as a scratchie or scratcher) requires the player to scratch one or more panels on a card to reveal one or more symbols hidden underneath. A pull-tab scratchcard (also known as a pull-off) is slightly different, but only in the game symbols are hidden beneath cardboard tabs that need to be pulled away from the main game card.

The cheapest offline scratchcards tend to be a lot more expensive than the cheapest online scratchcard games, so if you like to play several games to improve your chances of winning, playing online scratchcards is a lot more affordable. It’s also a lot more convenient – you can play from the comfort of your own home at any time of day or night.

If you do play offline scratchcards as well as their online equivalents, be sure to find out if the jackpot prize is still available. It’s no good buying an offline scratchcard in the hope of winning a top prize if the top prize has already been won and there are no more available. This is something that many offline players don’t think about, but their ignorance means that are wasting their money if they are looking for a jackpot.

On the other hand, if an offline scratchcard has been played for several months and all of the top prizes are still available, your odds of winning one of the ‘big ones’ have effectively improved, because the number of games in play has reduced but the big prizes are still out there somewhere. That’s another good reason to check the prize situation before buying offline scratchcards.