PixelVixen707

The brand new hand-held cavalcade of felonies, Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, boasts a single, thin storyline - and an array of side quests and other activities. Many players get hooked on drug dealing: you can travel between a series of dealers skulking around the city, buying pills low and selling them high, or following a tip on low-priced coke or a buyer who’s desperate to get rocked off his nipples on pot. It’s a simple but well-tuned trading game with an element of risk: hard-to-spot security cameras hide everywhere, and if you get arrested while you’re holding, the cops will rob you blind. But if you stay sharp and make the right deals, you can earn tens of thousands of dollars in no time.

But I found a better, even more addictive habit. I buy scratch tickets. They’re sold at convenience stores located around the city. Walk in and pick your card, and you get to scratch it yourself with the DS stylus to reveal your prize. And surprisingly, the odds are in your favor.

After scratching a few hundred cards, I got the distinct impression that the game was trying to help me. Yes, a slim majority of cards were duds. But I won far more often than I expected. For example, take a look at the first 50-or-so “Burger Shot” cards I got. This graph tracks losers (0), french fries (1), and burgers (2):

Notice too that I start winning more often the longer I play. Persistence pays off!

Or take a look at my cash winnings on the “I’m Rich” card. The card costs $15, but check how often it hits; each of those spikes is a $200 payout. After 30 scratches I was up over $800.

Don’t miss the “Ammu-nation” card. Scratch a few of them and you’re bound to win a set of body armor; this is cheaper and easier than buying a flak jacket from the store. And while the “Liberty City Lotto” doesn’t pay out as grandly as “I’m Rich” - which gives you a shot at a new safehouse - I did land the $1,000 top prize twice.

Why would Rockstar Games make winning so easy? They could have taken a different approach here, by making the prizes harder to win, but much more tempting. Instead, Chinatown Wars promises steady, easy payoffs. Walk in with $200 and you’ll walk out with something you can use.

And the scarcer payouts are still sorely tempting. In fact, every time I boot the game I find myself scratching more tickets. And I’ve found a few more ways to help my odds.

- The sooner in a session you go to the convenience store, the more you’ll make at “I’m Rich.”

- If you leave your safehouse, shoot three people and then go to the convenience store, you’re 2% more likely to get the fries.

- If you drive a taxi cab to the store, you have a 3.2% better shot at winning body armor.

- Play the game while you’re wearing no shoes - or while you’re wearing mismatched socks - and you’ll score a steady stream of $1,000 payoffs.

- Some stores give a better payout on the exact same ticket than others. I would tell you which ones, but I don’t want you to hog the winners.

I’ve got a list of other tips, too. But no time to share them. I’m going to go down the street from my apartment and see if I can suss out the New York lottery. With Microsoft Excel, $200 in cash and a lock of my baby hair in my pocket, there’s no way I can lose.