With scratch-off lottery tickets, you win cash instantly! In most states, you can cash any prize up to $500-$600 at any location that sells lottery tickets.
The first tip and one of the most important ones is the concept of playing 'new' games. A "new game" is a scratch off lottery game that is brand new and just came out recently. Most states and countries come out with new scratch off games monthly or a least quarterly. These are the ones you want to play, and this is CRUCIAL.
Why? Because some scratch off games have been around for several months or even over a year... Which means that many of the prizes have already been won and claimed for those games. Not only the TOP prizes (which can be pretty substantial amounts of money sometimes) but even the smaller prizes such as the $2 - $500 prizes can be mostly gone if a game is old. It's not rocket science, but it makes perfect sense and you might not have thought about it before. The newer the game... the more fresh full of prizes it will be.