I play the lottery. Sometimes, recently I have been playing Scratchers. The other day I won $500. On a $20 scratcher.
Today I played a scratcher game I have never played before: Mystery Crossword. It's a $10 scratcher that pays up to $750,000.
I began playing. Not knowing how to play I looked on the back of the ticket to see how to play. Looking at the instructions I could not understand any of it. Nothing. Not one single instruction re how to play this scratcher game. None of the stuff was understandable. I could not figure out how to play, how to win. I was stumped. Now, I am not stupid. I am a very smart person, college educated with a high IQ. Yet, I could not figure out a simple scratcher game. Because the game was too complicated. It made no sense. It could not be played. I blame the California Lottery. Somebody there invented and marketed a crossword scratcher lottery game that was harder to play than doing the New York Times crossword!
Luckily, I knew that you could just scratch off the bar code and run it under/into the lottery scanner at the places that sell lottery tickets and see if you won. Without playing the game. That's what I decided to do. Except I was even unclear whether the bar code on my scratcher was hidden and needed to be scratched off to be seen or already existed exposed and scannable. Again, I was stumped.
In all my many years of playing the lottery I have never been stumped re any of the lottery tickets or games I have played. On this one, the $10 Mystery Crossword scratcher, I was completely baffled. Stumped. Stunned. Was I getting too old? Was I getting stupid? Was I in danger of losing my mind, my ability to use my brain? No. The scratcher game was confusing. Was it created to baffle players? To make players feel stupid? I don't know. And I don't care. I will never play Mystery Crossword again. Neither will other scratcher players. Or you could play it without playing, simply scanning the Mystery Crossword scratcher to see if you won, without the excitement and fun of playing the game and seeing if you won some $$$.