If three of 'Your Numbers' appeared on a board in a straight line, you'd won. The goal was to scrape off the latex and compare the numbers under it to the digits on the boards.

On the left was a box headlined 'Your Numbers,' covered with a scratchable latex coating. Its design was straightforward: On the right were eight tic-tac-toe boards, dense with different numbers. The second ticket was a tic-tac-toe game. 'I thought, 'This is exactly why I never play these dumb games.'' 'The first was a loser, and I felt pretty smug,' Srivastava says. He fished a coin out of a drawer and began scratching off the latex coating. The tickets were cheap scratchers-a gag gift from his squash partner-and Srivastava found himself wondering if any of them were winners. Mohan Srivastava, a geological statistician living in Toronto, was working in his office in June 2003, waiting for some files to download onto his computer, when he discovered a couple of old lottery tickets buried under some paper on his desk.