Up until a few years ago, scratch cards were bought from your local stores or big supermarkets. You either scratch them straight away or take them home and scratch them awaiting that big money win. The habit of buying these tickets from a physical outlet was a very normal thing. These days the idea of scratch cards has changed with online scratch cards becoming insanely popular amongst players and as a result, subsequently many more online casinos now offer scratch card games to their customers. In order to get the best experience when playing these types of scratch cards we devised a little guide to give you all the info you need to play to win.
The goal
When you play online games like scratch cards, the goal is exactly the same. You scratch the virtual card and follow the game rules to see if you’ve won. Each ticket has a specific game type with its own set of rules and with the aid of your trusty mouse - and not a coin or your finger nail -; you scratch away the area marked on screen. Just in the same way as their physical versions, you win online by meeting the criteria for a win set out in the rules for each game type.
There are several ways to win with online scratch cards, the most common types are:
- Matching 2 or 3 identical symbols and winning associated prizes.
- Beating the dealers score by scratching and revealing better cards in games like blackjack or poker and winning an amount.
- Matching 3x the same amount of money on the same card to win that amount.
- Finding a bonus symbol on the card that wins you a specific amount of money instantly.
According to the tickets themselves, the rules constantly change and it’s advisable to read the terms and conditions of each game to ensure you know its objective completely beforehand to avoid any disappointment.
Choosing the right scratch card
You will notice by browsing our lists of recommended casinos that many of them offer scratch card games. These games have been developed in conjunction with reputable game publishers and have become more and more popular with online casino players. You have extensive game libraries dedicated to scratch cards and sometimes this makes it a problem to choose one to play.
Our advice on choosing a scratch card is to first approach a game that potentially excites you or makes you smile, one that includes a theme you are particularly interested in or find amusing and not one that you’re going to get bored of after the first few scratches.
As a new player, you are entitled to free play and a range of bonuses so that you get the chance to learn more about the casino of your choice. Use free play to your advantage and keep in mind that free scratch cards win real money. This means that you can tick all your casino entertainment wishes off the list and play absolutely risk-free! What a bargain!
Playing scratch cards
The actual game of scratch cards is so fast that you can end up playing lots of cards one after the other at a fairly significant rate. This is the 4 basic steps you should follow when playing online scratch cards:
- Always start by reading the rules and examining the pay-table and prize structure.
- You then begin by defining how much you want to ‘pay’ or bet for the card, the more you bet the greater the potential winnings will be.
- You use your mouse to scratch the designated area on the screen to reveal the symbols, cards or money values etc. Sometimes games will offer auto scratch functions.
- You check the area that you’ve scratched to see if you’ve met the desired win criteria for that game or if you’ve uncovered an instant win bonus symbol.