Tech Town, NC

If you haven’t heard of SeeMeWin.com, then you probably haven’t heard of anything like it either. The premise is simple - watch people scratch lotto tickets, 24/7, hence the name See Me Win. The obvious question is, why in the world would I want to watch that?

Before we answer that, let’s take a longer look at what this “service” does.

The core of the site is a UStream video feed of the “stars” of the show, aka the scratchers. The video is in typical web-cam style, most often with a single scratcher seated directly in front of the camera with unflattering lighting. Scratchers are encouraged to be entertaining, to which end they have employed gorilla costumes, fake moustaches, real chickens, and mildly attractive women. I don’t have stats on the performers, but I would guess that the most effective gimmick was the old reliable “mildly attractive female” trick. Geeks eat that up.

A meebo-rooms powered chat room is integrated into the site allowing viewers to interact in real-time with the scratchers. Believe it or not, fans have been known to sit and chat with the scratchers for hours on end.

The scratchers themselves are average people looking for a taste of internet fame and a chance to play the lotto for free. Like any good, or bad, reality TV, “cast members” are selected based on audition tapes that show just how entertaining the individuals can be. Once a scratcher is selected SeeMeWin pays for the tickets and the scratcher keeps any the winnings - a not insignificant total of $10,968 to date. It’s risk-free gambling, and all it costs is hours on end of scraping metallic paint off of pieces of paper. I don’t think I’ll be auditioning anytime soon, but hey, that’s just me.

From what I can tell the business model is just as straightforward as the premise. Sponsors who want to reach out to gambling addicted hermits (Bodog anyone?) can pay for tickets and ad space on the site. Since the scratchers are paid from their winnings and the sponsors take care of the tickets, it’s a pretty low-cost operation. As long as they can squeeze a little extra ad revenue out of it the SeeMeWin founders might have a viable income here.

So the question remains, why would I want to watch this? While I’m not going to become a hardcore viewer, there are two things about this that will always elicit some interest from everyone, Money and Voyeuristic thrill. We’ve all at least paused on a World Series of Poker on ESPN, or watched our friends throw away $300 in 20 minutes at a blackjack table. We like to see people take risks, win or lose.

As Martin Scorsese says in his cameo role in Quiz Show: “They didn’t tune in to watch some incredible display of intellect. They tuned in to watch the money.” For those who tune in to SeeMeWin you can be sure it’s to watch the money.