Buying and scratching instant lottery tickets is something that almost everyone has done at one time or another. For a few folks it’s probably something they do all 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 time, 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 the state of Pennsylvania where I live, the first scratch off ticket came out in 1975, and they have already been a large hit every since.
I have bought instant lottery tickets of every available price range in my own state. I usually buy the $1 – $2 tickets, but from time to time I purchase a $5 – $10 ticket, and one 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 out my $20. You would believe with having to spend that much money, they would give everyone at least a FREE $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 they say, “Unless you play, you can’t win !”, it had been a gamble, and I didn’t win that time. I have known two individuals who each won near $20,000 on instant lottery tickets. So I can say for certain, “yes, some folks do win it big.”
Unlike the live lottery that’s usually drawn by picking numbers, the instant lottery is pre-determined months ahead of it’s release. The tickets were created and printed, they are distributed to the lottery retailers throughout the state. Most small convenience stores offer instant lottery tickets, and also the large chain stores. It is possible to 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 only $1 so when high as $20 each in most states of the U.S. however, many states may have tickets that sell for a lot 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 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 by means of commissions, incentives and bonuses. In every, more than 93 cents of each dollar stays in Missouri. It’s different for every state, but the lottery is very beneficial despite the few problems it can cause to some, by means 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 each and every time you throw a losing instant lottery ticket in the trash, you’re throwing money away ? Yes, there are literally hundreds if not a large number of folks around the world that would love to buy your tickets from you. I’ve seen losing lottery tickets sell for as high as $15 each, these were tickets that had no redeemable value. I once visited an area convenience store and asked them if I 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 to me, I took the tickets home and after checking through them all, 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 ตรวจสลากกินแบ่งรัฐบาล . I happened to check one 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 constantly. I just 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. There are groups and individuals all over the world, that love collecting lottery tickets. There are lots of 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 moment 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 execute a search for: lotologist OR lotology. And you could find many sites collecting, selling and buying used non-winning instant lottery tickets.