One of the biggest and most successful forms of gambling in Ireland, and in many other parts of the world is the lottery. Wherever a national lottery has been legalised and introduced it has proved massively successful in providing funding for a variety of charities and other good causes, as well as sports and major structural investments. The willingness of such a large proportion of the population to support lottery gambling persuaded many lottery operators to introduce new regular gambling opportunities to boost turnover, the most popular of which is the scratch card. There is no doubt that scratch card gambling has become a feature of everyday life for many people, and any visit to the shops is often accompanied by the purchase of a scratch card. The popularity of gambling on scratch cards did not of course escape the attention of other gambling organisations, in particular the online gambling operators, and almost all the major online casinos now have versions of scratch card gambling and lottery gambling included in their range of casino gambling games. Online gambling on scratch cards offers the same instant results associated with the high street cards, and has in fact taken the concept of small stakes even further with many online casinos offering scratch card gambling for as little as 0.1 euros a time. Fans of online gambling on scratch cards can now enjoy playing a wide range of themed scratch cards at most of the major online casino sites and almost choose their own stakes. There is even a scratch card on the Party casino site which costs as much as $500 to play should you be lucky enough to be able to afford that sort of stake. For the rest of us we can enjoy the instant satisfaction of gambling on scratch cards for stakes which suit our budgets, and they certainly prove an interesting and enjoyable alternative to gambling on the slots.