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 too often. I guess for me personally, the bad buying habit is junk food. EASILY had spent my extra cash on instant lottery tickets over the years, I may have been rich by now instead of overweight. Like anything, be it food or gambling one must do it in moderation, and that is often not easy to do.
Here in Situstoto of Pennsylvania where I live, the initial scratch off ticket arrived in 1975, and they have been a big hit every since.
I have 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 one time, I purchased a $20 instant ticket. I won nothing on the $20 ticket, not $1 or perhaps a FREE ticket, in order that was like throwing out 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 kind of foolish for spending and losing the $20 on one ticket, but heck as the saying goes, “Unless you 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, 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 see 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 may 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 can be 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 necessary for Ohio’s public education. In Missouri, approximately 27.3 cents of each dollar allocated to the Lottery benefits education programs; 61.6 cents dates 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 every, 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 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 are 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, they were 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 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 that were $1 winners which 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 check 1 day and I noticed there is 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 continuously. 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.
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 many websites, discussion groups and forums now just for lottery ticket collecting. Actually there is a good new term or name for an instantaneous lottery ticket collector: LOTOLOGIST, and the instant lottery ticket collecting hobby is named: LOTOLOGY. To observe how big this hobby is becoming just visit your favorite search engine, such as GOOGLE, and do a search for: lotologist OR lotology. And you can find many sites collecting, selling and buying used non-winning instant lottery tickets.