Buying and scratching instant lottery tickets is a thing that almost everyone has done at once or another. For some 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 through the years, I may have 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 arrived in 1975, and they have already been a big hit every since.
I’ve bought instant lottery tickets of each available price range in my own state. I usually buy the $1 – $2 tickets, but once in awhile I buy a $5 – $10 ticket, and something time, I purchased a $20 instant ticket. I won nothing on the $20 ticket, not $1 or a FREE ticket, in order that was like throwing away my $20. You would believe that 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 on 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. THEREFORE I can say for certain, “yes, some folks do win it big.”
Unlike the live lottery that is usually drawn by picking numbers, the instant lottery is pre-determined months ahead of 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, and also 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 in most states of the U.S. but some states could 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 can be used to create 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, Bocoran Sdy provides about 4.5 percent of the funding necessary for Ohio’s public education. In Missouri, approximately 27.3 cents of every dollar spent on 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 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 very 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 really win anything, they throw the tickets in the trash. Did you know that each 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 would love to purchase your tickets from you. I have seen losing lottery tickets sell for as high as $15 each, we were holding tickets that had no redeemable value. I once went to an area convenience store and asked them easily may have a bag of losing instant lottery tickets I saw they had on the floor behind the counter. The clerk gladly gave them to me, I took the tickets home and after checking through all of them, I found two that were $1 winners which 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 1 day and I noticed there was losing instant lottery tickets for sale on the eBay auction website. You can find folks selling non-winning, so called ‘worthless’ lottery tickets on eBay at all times. I simply did a search now while writing this article, and I found over 100 different auction listings for them. Who buys these non-winning lottery tickets ? Collectors.
Instant Lottery Ticket collecting is fast becoming 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 simply 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 becoming just visit your favorite search engine, such as GOOGLE, and execute a seek out: lotologist OR lotology. And you could find many sites collecting, buying and selling used non-winning instant lottery tickets.