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 junk food. If I had spent my extra money on instant lottery tickets over the years, I may have been rich by now instead of overweight. Like anything, whether it’s food or gambling one should do it in moderation, which is often not easy to accomplish.
Here in hawaii of Pennsylvania where I live, the initial scratch off ticket came out 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 own state. I usually choose the $1 – $2 tickets, but from time to time 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 away my $20. You would think that with having to spend that much money, they might give everyone at least a FREE $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, “Unless you 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 sure, “yes, some people 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, then 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 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 only $1 so when 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 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 each 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 every dollar stays in Missouri. It’s different for each and every 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 are throwing money away ? Yes, there are literally hundreds if not thousands of folks around the world that would love to buy 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 went to a local 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 if you ask me, I took the tickets home and after checking through all of them, I found two which 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 look 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 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. You can find groups and individuals all around the world, that love collecting lottery tickets. There are Live Draw HK , discussion groups and forums now simply for lottery ticket collecting. In fact there is a good new term or name for an instantaneous lottery ticket collector: LOTOLOGIST, and the instant lottery ticket collecting hobby is called: LOTOLOGY. To observe how big this hobby is becoming just visit your favorite internet search engine, such as GOOGLE, and do a search for: lotologist OR lotology. And you could find many sites collecting, buying and selling used non-winning instant lottery tickets.