Scratchcard

A scratchcard is a card designed for competitions, often made of thin cardstock or plastic, where one or more areas contain concealed information which can be revealed by scratching off an opaque covering. Applications include cards sold for gambling (especially, lottery games and quizzes), free-of-charge cards for quizzes, fraudulent free cards encouraging calls to premium rate phone services, and to conceal confidential information such as PINs for telephone calling cards (otherwise known as recharge cards) and other prepaid services. In some cases, the entire scratchable area needs to be scratched to see whether a prize has been won—the card is printed either to be a winner or not—or to reveal the secret code; the result does not depend upon what portions are scratched off. In other cases, some but not all areas have to be scratched; this may apply in a quiz, where the area corresponding to the right answer is scratched, or in some gambling applications where, depending on which areas are scratched, the card wins or loses. In these cases, the card becomes invalid if too many areas are scratched. After losing, one can scratch all areas to see if, how, and what one could have won with this card.

A scratchcard is a card designed for competitions, often made of thin cardstock or plastic, where one or more areas contain concealed information which can be revealed by scratching off an opaque covering. Applications include cards sold for gambling (especially, lottery games and quizzes), free-of-charge cards for quizzes, fraudulent free cards encouraging calls to premium rate phone services, and to conceal confidential information such as PINs for telephone calling cards (otherwise known as recharge cards) and other prepaid services. In some cases, the entire scratchable area needs to be scratched to see whether a prize has been won—the card is printed either to be a winner or not—or to reveal the secret code; the result does not depend upon what portions are scratched off. In other cases, some but not all areas have to be scratched; this may apply in a quiz, where the area corresponding to the right answer is scratched, or in some gambling applications where, depending on which areas are scratched, the card wins or loses. In these cases, the card becomes invalid if too many areas are scratched. After losing, one can scratch all areas to see if, how, and what one could have won with this card. ===Online gambling scratchcards=== By around 2010 online versions of virtual "scratchcard" (not real cards) gambling games which utilized Macromedia Flash and Java to simulate scratching a card on a computer were available. Virtual cards could be bought, and prizes collected, over an Internet connection. ==Gallery== File:聖誕節中獎500元刮刮樂彩券 - panoramio.jpg File:5 Year Anniversary California Lottery Tickets.jpg File:中国体育彩票刮刮乐.jpg File:National Lottery scratchcard, front side, Gillingham, Kent, England.jpg|Front side of a National Lottery scratchcard (United Kingdom) File:National Lottery scratchcard, reverse side, Gillingham, Kent, England.jpg|Reverse side of a National Lottery scratchcard (United Kingdom)

Text derived from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1377702955 under CC BY-SA 4.0; modifications have been made.