Online Scratchies NZ

Finding the Best Scratchies Online

The physical scratchies we know from NZ convenience stores and lottery outlets are about as numerous and varied as the stars in the night sky. This is only enhanced as soon as we enter the digital realm, with online scratchies being available in just about every theme, gameplay style, and jackpot you can think of. We at InsideCasino like playing online scratchies as much as you do.  For this reason, we have taken on the challenge of reviewing NZ’s many scratchie games, along with the real money gambling sites hosting them, to make it easier for you to find what you want to play.

How to Play Online Scratchies

With our recommended lists and games here, getting started on online scratchies should be easier than buying a physical ticket.  Just follow the steps below and you’ll be right on your way:

• Choose a scratchies game. Check out our collection of scratchie reviews, which are each put together by a team of gambling experts and scratchie enthusiasts to give you the best impression of these games.
• Choose a scratchies site. Different sites in NZ can have different scratchies available; looking through our online casino reviews will give you an idea of what to expect from their services before you sign up.
• Sign up for a scratchies casino account. Once you’ve found a game you like, you can sign up for an account to gain access to the site’s scratchies catalogue.
• Buy online scratchies cards. With your account now verified, simply go to the scratchies section at the site you signed up for and buy a ticket!

A Brief History of Online Scratch Cards

Compared to other online casino and lottery games, online scratch cards or ‘scratchies’ don’t have as long of history to speak of as the game itself was actually invented fairly recently.

Physical scratchies had their start in the US as the invention of computer programmer John Koza in the 1960s. Koza adapted the idea of promotional scratch-off tickets into a system that had its odds adjusted to produce a controlled outcome rather than pure randomness. This idea would then be turned into a full-fledged product in 1974 with the help of Daniel Bower, with whom Koza worked to form a company known as Scientific Games.

Their online counterparts would follow in the 1990s as the World Wide Web became more accessible to regular users. The development of these games was spearheaded by iGaming pioneer Microgaming, and the rest is history.

How Online Scratchies Work

If you look past the many themes and gimmicks introduced in modern online scratchies, you’ll find that all of them work in more or less the same way: you remove hidden spaces on your scratchie ticket to reveal whether you got a win or not.

Below, we go into a bit more detail into some of the fundamental mechanics of online scratchies to give you a better idea of what to expect as you look for tickets to buy.

Payout Percentage

Unlike other casino games that use RTP (or Return to Player), scratchies use ‘payout percentage’ as a measure of how often the cards pay out winnings to players. Also unlike RTP, payout percentage is a lot more straightforward in meaning.  It is the measurement of how often your ticket ends up being a winning one.  As an example, we’ve listed below the prices, payout percentages, and max jackpots on several online scratchies from MyLotto:

Online Scratchies Jackpots

Depending on your budget and how lucky you’re feeling, you have your pick of all sorts of jackpot levels on NZ online scratchies that range from the few hundreds to the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

While there are always exceptions and outliers to this, one thing we’ve observed from online scratchies over the years is that the size of the jackpot game typically scales with the price of the ticket and the odds of the jackpot. To put it in simpler terms, the larger the jackpot, the harder and/or more expensive it is to get.

As an example, we can see in the above that the Lucky 7s from MyLotto has a jackpot of NZ$10,000, a price of NZ$1 per ticket, and jackpot odds of 1 in 500,000. Meanwhile, the ‘Multiply the Cash 100’ ticket has a max prize of NZ$200,000, but a price of NZ$10 per ticket and jackpot odds of 1 in 1 million.

Online Scratchie Providers

The immense variety of online scratchies games in NZ is and should be attributed to the creative minds of the gambling software developers that made them. For your reference, we’ve listed a handful of notable online scratchies providers that you can use as a starting point to finding your next scratchies games:

• 1×2 Network: It is widely agreed that 1×2 casino sites are the father of hosting virtual sports betting games.  This British developer also specialises in betting games for online roulette casinos and keno sites. A few of their best titles include Neon Jungle Scratch, Siren’s Kingdom Scratch, and Wai-Kiki Scratch.
• Microgaming: As one of the pioneering developers in the space, Microgaming casino sites are practically synonymous with online gambling.  With hundreds of games spanning pokies online, lottery games and live casino. Notable online scratch cards made by Microgaming include Rainbow Magic Pull Tab, Space Force, and Snakes & Ladders.
• Hacksaw Gaming: As one of Microgaming’s sub-brands, this relatively new game developer is responsible for scratchies like Queen Treasure and Ruby Rush] alongside a few dozen other games that inject a new freshness to the games catalogue.
• Spinomenal: A little-known independent team based in Malta, Spinomenal is a new and rapidly-growing developer with over 300 games for mobile-friendly casino sites under its belt, including online scratchies like Scratchy Bit, Signs of Fortune, and Secret Cupcakes.

Other NZ Online Casino Games

While online scratchies are by far the most convenient online casino game you can play in NZ, Kiwi players have access to a bunch of other options if you’re after bigger jackpots or a slightly different way to play:

• Play Baccarat Online
• Play Blackjack Online
• Play Craps Online
• Play Poker Online
• Play Roulette Online

Our Final Thoughts

For any Kiwi player looking for a quick and easy play, online scratchies are by far the quickest and easiest, even compared to their physical counterparts. If you want to get started on your online scratchies journey, all you need to do now is select the site you like most, register an account and start playing!