Buying and scratching instant lottery tickets is a thing that almost everyone has done at one time or another. For a few folks it’s probably something they do too often. I guess for me, the bad buying habit is processed foods. If I had spent my extra cash on instant lottery tickets over time, I may have been rich by now rather than overweight. Like anything, whether it’s food or gambling one must do it in moderation, which is often not easy to accomplish.
Here in hawaii of Pennsylvania where I live, the initial scratch off ticket came out in 1975, and they have already been a large hit every since.
I’ve bought instant lottery tickets of every available price range in my state. I usually buy the $1 – $2 tickets, but from time to time I buy a $5 – $10 ticket, and something time, I purchased a $20 instant ticket. I won nothing on the $20 ticket, not even $1 or a FREE ticket, so that was like throwing out my $20. You would think that with needing to spend that much money, they might give everyone at least a FREE $1 ticket or something. I thought afterwards that I was sort of foolish for spending and losing the $20 on one ticket, but heck as they say, “If you don’t play, you can’t win !”, it had been a gamble, and I didn’t win that time. I’ve known two individuals who each won near $20,000 on instant lottery tickets. So I can say for sure, “yes, some people do win it big.”
Unlike the live lottery that’s usually drawn by picking numbers, the instant lottery is pre-determined months ahead of it’s release. The tickets were created and printed, then they are distributed to the lottery retailers through the entire state. Most small convenience stores offer instant lottery tickets, in addition to the large chain stores. It is possible to usually find them in a vending machine with multiple styles and price ranges to choose from, or they are at the cashiers area on the counter or behind a shielded section. Instant lottery tickets sell for as low as $1 so when high as $20 each generally in most states of the U.S. however, many states may have tickets that sell for a lot more than $20 each.
States do instant lotteries to greatly help fund many different programs. For instance in Pennsylvania, the lottery is used to generate funds to benefit programs for the Commonwealth’s older residents. In Ohio, since 1974, the Lottery has provided a lot more than $13 billion to public education. Annually, the lottery provides about 4.5 percent of the funding needed for Ohio’s public education. In Missouri, approximately 27.3 cents of every dollar allocated to the Lottery benefits education programs; 61.6 cents goes back to players as prizes, 5 cents is used for administrative costs and 6.1 cents would go to retailers by means of commissions, incentives and bonuses. In all, more than 93 cents of each dollar stays in Missouri. It’s different for each state, but the lottery is quite beneficial despite the few problems it could cause to some, by means of gambling addictions.
Most folks buy instant (scratch off) tickets, and when they don’t win anything, they throw the tickets in the trash. Did you know each and every time you throw a losing instant lottery ticket in the trash, you’re throwing money away ? Yes, there are literally hundreds if not a large number of folks around the world that could love to purchase your tickets from you. I’ve seen losing lottery tickets sell for as high as $15 each, we were holding tickets that had no redeemable value. I once went to a local convenience store and asked them easily could have a bag of losing instant lottery tickets I saw they had on the floor behind the counter. The clerk gladly gave them if you ask me, I took the tickets home and after checking through all of them, I found two which were $1 winners that were not redeemed, and I sold the remaining losing tickets for $30, and the store was just likely to throw them away.
Where did I sell them ? On eBay. I happened to check 1 day and I noticed there is losing instant lottery tickets for sale on the eBay auction website. There are folks selling non-winning, so called ‘worthless’ lottery tickets on eBay at all times. I just did a search now while writing this short article, and I found over 100 different auction listings for them. Who buys these non-winning lottery tickets ? Collectors.
Live Draw Sdy collecting is fast learning to be a big thing. You can find groups and individuals all over the world, that love collecting lottery tickets. There are various websites, discussion groups and forums now just for lottery ticket collecting. Actually there is a good new term or name for an instant lottery ticket collector: LOTOLOGIST, and the instant lottery ticket collecting hobby is named: LOTOLOGY. To see how big this hobby is now just visit your favorite search engine, such as GOOGLE, and execute a search for: lotologist OR lotology. And you may find many sites collecting, buying and selling used non-winning instant lottery tickets.