Buying and scratching instant lottery tickets is something that almost everyone has done at once or another. For a few folks it’s probably something they do all too often. I guess for me, the bad buying habit is junk food. EASILY had spent my extra cash on instant lottery tickets over time, I may have been rich by now rather than overweight. Like anything, be it food or gambling one should do it in moderation, and that 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 big hit every since.
I have bought instant lottery tickets of every available price range in my state. I usually choose the $1 – $2 tickets, but once in awhile I purchase a $5 – $10 ticket, and something time, I purchased a $20 instant ticket. I won nothing on the $20 ticket, not $1 or perhaps a FREE ticket, so that was like throwing away my $20. You would believe with having 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 on one ticket, but heck as they say, “Unless you play, you can’t win !”, it was a gamble, and I didn’t win that time. I have known two individuals who each won near $20,000 on instant lottery tickets. THEREFORE I can say for sure, “yes, some folks do win it big.”
Unlike the live lottery that is 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 through the entire state. Most small convenience stores offer instant lottery tickets, along with the large chain stores. You can 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 even more than $20 each.
States do instant lotteries to help fund many different programs. For example in Pennsylvania, the lottery can be used to create 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 necessary 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 can be 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 and every state, but the lottery is very beneficial regardless of the few problems it can cause to some, in the form of gambling addictions.
Most folks buy instant (scratch off) tickets, and if 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, there are literally hundreds if not thousands of folks around the world that could love to purchase your tickets from you. I have 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 if I could have a bag of losing instant lottery tickets I saw they had on to 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 rest of the losing tickets for $30, and the store was just going to throw them away.
Where did I sell them ? On eBay. I happened to look one day and I noticed there was losing instant lottery tickets on the market 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 came across over 100 different auction listings for them. Who buys pos4d -winning lottery tickets ? Collectors.
Instant Lottery Ticket 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 many websites, discussion groups and forums now just for lottery ticket collecting. In fact there is a good new term or name for an instant lottery ticket collector: LOTOLOGIST, and the moment lottery ticket collecting hobby is named: LOTOLOGY. To see how big this hobby is becoming just visit your favorite search engine, such as GOOGLE, and execute a seek out: lotologist OR lotology. And you can find many sites collecting, buying and selling used non-winning instant lottery tickets.