Blackpool produced their first home victory since September thanks to an excellent finish from Latvian defender Kaspars Gorkss.
After a host of misses which totally frustrated the home crowd, Gorkss went up for a corner in the 71st minute. It was headed back across goal by Claus Jorgensen and Gorkss showed the wayward finishers how it should be done, planting a firm header past Joe Murphy.
Ironically, Blackpool manager Simon Grayson is due to have boardroom talks with the club's Latvian president, Valery Belekon, this week in a bid to strengthen his squad.
In the first half Blackpool completely dominated with chances falling to Andy Morrell and Keigan Parker. Parker in particular should have scored at least twice when put through with only Murphy to beat.
Scunthorpe seemed to be quite happy to battle it out for a draw. Nigel Adkins threw on two substitutes on 56 minutes, leaving just Jonathon Forte up front in his bid to take a point.
But that plan was thwarted by the Gorkss' goal and suddenly Scunthorpe began to put together some useful attacks and Blackpool's defence started to creak.
Forte fired a shot narrowly wide on 62 minutes and defender Andy Butler went close with headers from corners.
In a frantic finale, Blackpool defenders Danny Coid and Shaun Barker both blocked goal-bound shots with their bodies as the home side survived an onslaught.
Afterwards Blackpool's scorer Gorkss said, "Once again we had played all the football but could not put the ball in the net.
"We thought Claus had scored but that was ruled out for some mystery hand-ball.
"We have become something of draw specialists and we desperately needed a win at home. I'm just delighted to get all the frustration out of the way."