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 personally, the bad buying habit is junk food. EASILY had spent my extra cash 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 should do it in moderation, and that is often not easy to accomplish.
Here in hawaii of Pennsylvania where I live, the first scratch off ticket arrived in 1975, and they have already been a big hit every since.
I have bought instant lottery tickets of every available price range in my 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 think that with having to spend that much money, they might give everyone at least a free of charge $1 ticket or something. I thought afterwards that I was sort of foolish for spending and losing the $20 using one ticket, but heck as they say, “If you don’t play, you can’t win !”, it was a gamble, and I didn’t win that point. I have known two individuals who each won near $20,000 on instant lottery tickets. So I can say for certain, “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 were created and printed, 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. You can 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 generally in most states of the U.S. however, many states could have tickets that sell for even more than $20 each.
States do instant lotteries to 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, 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 spent on 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 in the form 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 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 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 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 if I could 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 which were $1 winners that were not redeemed, and I sold the rest of the losing tickets for $30, and the store was just likely to throw them away.
Where did I sell them ? On eBay. I happened to look 1 day and I noticed there is 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 constantly. I simply 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.
Instant Lottery Ticket collecting is fast becoming a big thing. There are groups and individuals all around the world, that love collecting lottery tickets. There are numerous websites, discussion groups and forums now simply for lottery ticket collecting. Actually there is even Georgia Lottery or name for an instantaneous lottery ticket collector: LOTOLOGIST, and the moment lottery ticket collecting hobby is named: LOTOLOGY. To observe how big this hobby is now just visit your favorite internet search engine, such as GOOGLE, and execute a seek out: lotologist OR lotology. And you may find many sites collecting, selling and buying used non-winning instant lottery tickets.