Singapore Pools introduced ScratchIt some time ago in November 2004. For every 500,000 tickets, sold at $1 each, for a total of $500,000, they give out a total winning amount of $284,900 for a certain game. The odds for other ScratchIt games are not calculated.
Calculated thus: 284,900 / 500,000 gives a percentage of 56.98%. Thus, if you buy all 500,000 tickets, you'll only get back 56% of what you've spent. That means Singapore Pools earn $215,000 each time for 500,000 tickets printed.
Thus, what you are winning is other people's money, and what you are losing become other's money.
The probability of winning, however, is lower. For every 500,000 tickets, there is a 16.535% chance that you'll buy a winning ticket. This is because there is a total of 82677 winning tickets only.
Essentially, each time you buy a ScratchIt game ticket, there is a likelihood of 83% that you've already lost. That's assuming that all the tickets are sold at a single outlet.
So, do you think you're winning when you gamble? Or are you buying the excitement, and / or fun?