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, the bad buying habit is junk food. If I had spent my extra cash on instant lottery tickets through the years, I may have already been rich by now rather than overweight. Like anything, whether it’s food or gambling one should do it in moderation, and that 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 been a big hit every since.
Live Draw HK have bought instant lottery tickets of each 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 something time, I purchased a $20 instant ticket. I won nothing on the $20 ticket, not $1 or perhaps a FREE ticket, so 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 $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 they say, “Unless you play, you can’t win !”, it was 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 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 throughout the state. Most small convenience stores offer instant lottery tickets, plus 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 even 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 necessary for Ohio’s public education. In Missouri, approximately 27.3 cents of every 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 goes to retailers by means of commissions, incentives and bonuses. In every, more than 93 cents of every 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, 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 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, we were holding tickets that had no redeemable value. I once went to 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 all of them, I found two that 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 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 all the time. I simply did a search now while writing this short article, and I came across 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. You can find 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. 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 now just visit your favorite internet search engine, such as GOOGLE, and execute a search for: lotologist OR lotology. And you can find many sites collecting, selling and buying used non-winning instant lottery tickets.
