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 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, which is often not easy to accomplish.
Here in hawaii of Pennsylvania where I live, the initial scratch off ticket arrived in 1975, and they have been a big hit every since.
I’ve bought instant lottery tickets of each available price range in my own state. I usually buy the $1 – $2 tickets, but from time to time 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 out my $20. You would believe that with needing 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, “If you don’t play, you can’t win !”, it had been 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 sure, “yes, some people do win it big.”
Unlike the live lottery that is usually drawn by picking numbers, the moment lottery is pre-determined months ahead of it’s release. The tickets are designed and printed, then they are distributed to the lottery retailers throughout the state. Most small convenience stores offer instant lottery tickets, as well as 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 are at the cashiers area on the counter or behind a shielded section. Instant lottery tickets sell for as low as $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.
Live Sdy do instant lotteries to greatly help fund many different programs. For instance in Pennsylvania, the lottery is 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 needed for Ohio’s public education. In Missouri, approximately 27.3 cents of each dollar spent on 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 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 quite beneficial regardless of 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 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 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 easily may 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 them all, I found two that were $1 winners which were not redeemed, and I sold the remaining 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 one day and I noticed there was losing instant lottery tickets for sale 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 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 various websites, discussion groups and forums now simply for lottery ticket collecting. In fact there is a good new term or name for an instant 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 search engine, such as GOOGLE, and execute a seek out: lotologist OR lotology. And you may find many sites collecting, buying and selling used non-winning instant lottery tickets.