How to play
Picture an old sea chart covered in twelve silver patches. Under each patch is a symbol from a pirate’s haul: a gold coin, a map, a compass, a gem, a crown or the treasure chest. Two more symbols, the anchor and the skull, fill space and never pay.
Buying and opening a card takes a few seconds:
- Choose a Ticket price (10, 50 or 100 credits), then press Buy ticket.
- Drag your finger or mouse across the patches to scratch them away, or tap one to flip it open straight away. Keyboard players can move to a box and open it the same way.
- In a hurry? Reveal all opens the remaining patches together.
Once the last patch is gone, the card pays out. You need three matching treasure symbols; the prize is that symbol’s multiple of what you paid for the ticket. One card can hold one winning trio at most.
The haul: prizes and chances
| Symbol | Pays | Odds per card |
|---|---|---|
| Gold coin | 1× | 20% (1 in 5) |
| Map | 2× | 10% (1 in 10) |
| Compass | 5× | 3% (1 in 33) |
| Gem | 10× | 1.5% (1 in 67) |
| Crown | 50× | 0.2% (1 in 500) |
| Treasure chest | 500× | 0.02% (1 in 5,000) |
| Anchor, skull | — | never win |
That’s 34.72% of cards paying something. The coin and the map alone account for 30 of those 34.72 points, so most wins land at 1× or 2×.
Why this card plays differently
The six-prize ladder here is short and has a gap in the middle. After the gem at 10×, the next stop is the crown at 50×, then the chest at 500×. Nothing sits in between.
Put next to its sibling Gold Rush Scratch, which shares the twelve-box layout, the differences are easy to count:
- Treasure Hunt wins on 34.72% of cards, has six paying symbols, and peaks at 500×.
- Gold Rush wins on 33.29% of cards, has seven paying symbols (adding 25× and 100× rungs), and peaks at 1,000×.
So this one pays a little more often and keeps more of its value in the lower prizes. If you’d like a card where amounts rather than pictures are matched, Lucky Match works that way.
Where the 90% goes
Both cards return exactly 90% of the ticket price on average. Here it’s split very evenly. Per ticket bought, the coin gives back 20% of the price, the map 20%, the compass 15%, the gem 15%, the crown 10% and the chest 10%. Add those up and you get 90.
Read the other way, more than three-quarters of the value (70 of the 90 points) is in prizes of 10× or less. Treasure Hunt is the steadier of the two picture cards: fewer giant jackpots, more coins and maps.
Behind the patches
Your ticket’s outcome is picked from the odds above the instant you buy it, and the card is drawn to match. A winning card gets its treasure symbol three times. Every other symbol, anchors and skulls included, is placed no more than twice before the twelve boxes are mixed up.
With eight symbol types and twelve boxes, that rule forces plenty of doubles. A blank card always has at least four symbols showing twice, and usually more. Two crowns, two chests and a pair of skulls on one losing card is ordinary; the third copy simply never existed.
Tips
- Scratch however you like. Order, speed and Reveal all can’t change a card that was settled at purchase.
- Price is about prize size only. A 100-credit card turns a chest into 50,000 credits. A 10-credit card has exactly the same 1-in-5,000 chance at it.
- Budget for the blanks. About 65% of cards pay nothing, so a few empty ones in a row are routine.
- Don’t treat doubles as a sign. Pairs are built into nearly every card and say nothing about the next one.
If you enjoy Treasure Hunt, try Treasure Picks or Trente et Quarante next.
