Buying and scratching instant lottery tickets is something 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 processed foods. EASILY had spent my extra cash on instant lottery tickets over time, 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 hawaii of Pennsylvania where I live, the first scratch off ticket arrived 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 state. I usually choose the $1 – $2 tickets, but from time to time I purchase a $5 – $10 ticket, and something time, I purchased a $20 instant ticket. I won nothing on the $20 ticket, not even $1 or perhaps a FREE ticket, in order that was like throwing out my $20. You would believe with needing 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 using one ticket, but heck as the saying goes, “Unless you play, you can’t win !”, it had been a gamble, and I didn’t win that point. I have 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. It is possible to usually see them in a vending machine with multiple styles and price ranges 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. but some 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 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 goes 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 all, more than 93 cents of each dollar stays in Missouri. It’s different for every state, but the lottery is very beneficial regardless of the few problems it could cause to some, by means of gambling addictions.
Most folks buy instant (scratch off) tickets, and if they don’t really win anything, they throw the tickets in the trash. Did you know that each and 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 thousands of folks around the world that would love to purchase your tickets from you. Data SDY ‘ve seen losing lottery tickets sell for as high as $15 each, they were tickets that had no redeemable value. I once went to an area convenience store and asked them if I may have a bag of losing instant lottery tickets I saw they had on 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 that were not redeemed, and I sold the remaining 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 1 day and I noticed there was losing instant lottery tickets on the market on the eBay auction website. You can find folks selling non-winning, so called ‘worthless’ lottery tickets on eBay all the time. 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 learning to be a big thing. There are groups and individuals all over the world, that love collecting lottery tickets. There are many websites, discussion groups and forums now simply for lottery ticket collecting. Actually there is even a new term or name for an instantaneous lottery ticket collector: LOTOLOGIST, and the moment lottery ticket collecting hobby is named: LOTOLOGY. To observe how big this hobby is now just visit your favorite internet search engine, such as GOOGLE, and execute a search for: lotologist OR lotology. And you will find many sites collecting, selling and buying used non-winning instant lottery tickets.