Every industry has its own hidden "rules."
Jiang Tao had heard his aunt An Mingrong, who had run a lottery shop, talk about this before.
When they opened a book of scratch-offs for sale, they would keep an eye on how many prizes the book yielded.
How many 50 yuan, how many 100 yuan, and how much total prize money was won.
A book of scratch-offs sold for 1000 yuan, if it could yield a total prize of about 500, that's considered pretty good.
If a book of scratch-offs sells more than half and the prizes have already reached four or five hundred, then the remaining tickets are likely duds.
If a book is almost sold out with only two or three hundred in prizes given out, then the remaining tickets might yield larger amounts.
Almost every lottery shop owner who has been in the business for a while follows this practice.
Some go even further.
Some more "crooked" lottery shop owners would reapply the coating on already scratched-off tickets.
