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, the bad buying habit is junk food. If I had spent my extra money on instant lottery tickets over the years, I may have already been rich by now rather than overweight. Like anything, be it food or gambling one must do it in moderation, and that is often not easy to do.
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.
live draw sdy 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 buy a $5 – $10 ticket, and something time, I purchased a $20 instant ticket. I won nothing on the $20 ticket, not even $1 or a FREE ticket, so that was like throwing away my $20. You would think 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 sort 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’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 before it’s release. The tickets are designed and printed, they are distributed to the lottery retailers throughout the state. Most small convenience stores offer instant lottery tickets, along with the large chain stores. You can 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 only $1 and as high as $20 each generally in most states of the U.S. however, many 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 is 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 is used for administrative costs and 6.1 cents would go to retailers by means of commissions, incentives and bonuses. In every, more than 93 cents of each dollar stays in Missouri. It’s different for each and every state, but the lottery is quite beneficial regardless of the few problems it could 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 every time you throw a losing instant lottery ticket in the trash, you are throwing money away ? Yes, you can find literally hundreds if not a large number 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 a local convenience store and asked them if I could 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 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 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 continuously. 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 ? Collectors.
Instant Lottery Ticket collecting is fast learning to be 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 simply for lottery ticket collecting. In fact there is even a 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 now just visit your favorite search engine, such as GOOGLE, and do a seek out: lotologist OR lotology. And you will find many sites collecting, selling and buying used non-winning instant lottery tickets.