Buying and scratching instant lottery tickets is a thing that almost everyone has done at one time or another. For some folks it’s probably something they do all 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 the years, I may have been rich by now rather than overweight. Like anything, whether it’s food or gambling one should do it in moderation, which 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.
I have 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 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, in order that was like throwing out my $20. You would believe 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 kind of foolish for spending and losing the $20 using one ticket, but heck as the saying goes, “If you don’t 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 sure, “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 through the entire state. Most small convenience stores offer instant lottery tickets, in addition to the large chain stores. You can 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 as low as $1 and as high as $20 each in most states of the U.S. but some 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 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 every 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 goes to retailers by means of commissions, incentives and bonuses. In all, more than 93 cents of every dollar stays in Missouri. It’s different for every state, but the lottery is quite beneficial despite the few problems it can 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 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 could love to buy your tickets from you. I have seen losing lottery tickets sell for as high as $15 each, they were tickets that had no redeemable value. I once visited a local convenience store and asked them easily could 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 which were $1 winners that 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 one day and I noticed there is 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 constantly. I simply 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 around the world, that love collecting lottery tickets. There are numerous websites, discussion groups and forums now simply for lottery ticket collecting. In หวยออนไลน์ there is even a new term or name for an instantaneous lottery ticket collector: LOTOLOGIST, and the instant lottery ticket collecting hobby is named: LOTOLOGY. To observe how big this hobby is now 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.