Facts, estimates, and community evidence stay separate.
Official prize reports
ScratchSignal retrieves factual prize-tier records from the TDLR Lottery and Charitable Bingo Division's official scratch-off CSV. The source supplies the official “as of” date; ScratchSignal separately records when it retrieved the file. We validate the source schema and dates, cache only a valid snapshot, and stop showing rankings if no validated snapshot is available within 72 hours. “Unclaimed” does not mean a prize is still available at retail; a winning ticket may already have been sold but not claimed.
Prize-retention comparison—not current odds
For each prize tier, retention = reported unclaimed prizes ÷ prizes originally listed in the official prize structure. The top-tier retention gap is top-tier retention minus retention for the prize amount exactly equal to the ticket price. A positive gap means only that, as of the source date, the top-prize tier's reported-unclaimed share is higher by that many percentage points than the exact ticket-price prize tier's share. If a game has no exact ticket-price tier, ScratchSignal does not calculate that comparison.
ScratchSignal does not label this gap as improved odds. The official CSV does not report the number of unsold tickets, ticket distribution, or whether an unclaimed prize is already on a sold ticket. Those missing values prevent calculation of current next-ticket odds, current expected value, or a probability of winning or profiting. The official Texas game details describe published overall odds as based on the end-of-production prize structure and warn that actual prize counts may vary with manufacturing, testing, distribution, sales, and claims. ScratchSignal does not recalculate or replace those official overall odds.
When comparing two validated reports, ScratchSignal describes the metric only as widening or narrowing: “Between [earlier date] and [later date], the retention gap widened by X percentage points.” That is a change in the reporting metric, not evidence that actual odds, likelihood of profit, or the chance on the next ticket changed.
How to read a current comparison: “As of the source date, the top-prize tier retained 20 percentage points more of its originally listed prizes than the exact ticket-price tier” is a statement about reported prize-tier shares. “Your odds are 20% better” is not supported by this source and is not a ScratchSignal claim.
Stock Signal
The 0–100 Stock Signal value is an uncalibrated heuristic rank—not a probability or confidence percentage. It is used only to order retailers returned for the same game and ZIP code. It has not been calibrated or backtested as a chance of inventory or future availability. The official prior uses up to 120 days of completed monthly records from the Texas Lottery Sales by Fiscal Month/Year, Game and Retailer dataset: sales recency, up to three positive-sales months, and log-scaled sales relative to the other returned retailers. That prior is bounded from 20% to 68% as a model input, not an availability probability.
Only each signed-in account's freshest retailer report is used. Community evidence has a 12-hour half-life; “bought here” receives weight 1 and “saw it” or “out” receives weight 0.8 before time decay. Community influence ramps up with as many as four fresh reporting accounts, is bounded, and is combined with the prior through a logistic ranking formula. Positive labels require rank 70 or higher, at least four accounts across 45 minutes, and two purchase reports; negative labels require rank 30 or lower and at least four accounts across 45 minutes. Reports are unverified community self-reports, accounts are not proof of distinct people, and meeting a label threshold does not establish store inventory. Official monthly sales are historical, unaudited, may be adjusted, and are not current inventory.
Public information and attribution
Texas Government Code § 2054.126 and the published DIR and TDLR website policies generally allow use and reproduction of public state-agency information subject to conditions. ScratchSignal identifies the agency and exact source, records source and retrieval dates, presents the data independently without implying endorsement, and does not reuse official logos, ticket artwork, graphics, tables, or trade dress. This describes our source and attribution posture; it is not a legal guarantee.
Limits
ScratchSignal cannot identify winning tickets, predict random outcomes, calculate current ticket odds from the available source, or verify a retailer's current inventory. Percentages are truncated to one decimal for display; official integer counts control. All rankings, retention comparisons, and stock signals are independent monitoring outputs, not betting advice or official Texas analysis.