Buying and scratching instant lottery tickets is something that almost everyone has done at one time or another. For some folks it’s probably something they do all too often. I guess for me personally, the bad buying habit is junk food. EASILY had spent my extra money on instant lottery tickets through the years, I may have already been rich by now instead of overweight. Like anything, whether it’s food or gambling one must do it in moderation, which is often not easy to accomplish.
Here in the state of Pennsylvania where I live, the first scratch off ticket came out in 1975, and they have been a large hit every since.
I have bought instant lottery tickets of each available price range in my own state. I usually choose the $1 – $2 tickets, but once in awhile I purchase a $5 – $10 ticket, and one time, I purchased a $20 instant ticket. I won nothing on the $20 ticket, not even $1 or perhaps a FREE ticket, in order that was like throwing away my $20. You would believe with needing to spend that much money, they would give everyone at least a free of charge $1 ticket or something. I thought afterwards that I was kind of foolish for spending and losing the $20 using one ticket, but heck as the saying goes, “If you don’t play, you can’t win !”, it was a gamble, and I didn’t win that point. 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 moment lottery is pre-determined months before it’s release. The tickets are designed and printed, then they are distributed to the lottery retailers throughout the 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 prices to choose from, or they’re at the cashiers area on the counter or behind a shielded section. Instant lottery tickets sell for as low as $1 and as high as $20 each in most states of the U.S. but some states could have tickets that sell for even 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 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 each dollar spent on the Lottery benefits education programs; 61.6 cents dates back to players as prizes, 5 cents is used for administrative costs and 6.1 cents goes to retailers in the form of commissions, incentives and bonuses. In all, more than 93 cents of every dollar stays in Missouri. It’s different for each state, but the lottery is quite beneficial despite the few problems it can cause to some, in the form 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 that each and every time you throw a losing instant lottery ticket in the trash, you’re throwing money away ? Yes, you can find literally hundreds if not thousands of folks around the world that could love to buy your tickets from you. I’ve seen losing lottery tickets sell for as high as $15 each, these were tickets that had no redeemable value. I once visited an area convenience store and asked them easily may have a bag of losing instant lottery tickets I saw that 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 them all, I found two that were $1 winners which 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 one day and I noticed there was losing instant lottery tickets on the market on the eBay auction website. You can find folks selling non-winning, so called ‘worthless’ lottery tickets on eBay on a regular basis. I simply did a search now while writing this short article, and I came across over 100 different auction listings for them. Who buys these non-winning lottery tickets ? result sdy .
Instant Lottery Ticket collecting is fast learning to be a big thing. You can find groups and individuals all around the world, that love collecting lottery tickets. There are many websites, discussion groups and forums now simply for lottery ticket collecting. Actually there is a good new term or name for an instantaneous lottery ticket collector: LOTOLOGIST, and the moment lottery ticket collecting hobby is called: 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 could find many sites collecting, buying and selling used non-winning instant lottery tickets.