Buying and scratching instant lottery tickets is a thing that almost everyone has done at once 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 processed foods. EASILY had spent my extra cash on instant lottery tickets through the years, I may have already been rich by now instead of overweight. Like anything, be it 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 initial scratch off ticket came out in 1975, and they have been a big 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 something 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 think that 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 sort 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 was a gamble, and I didn’t win that point. I have known two individuals who each won near $20,000 on instant lottery tickets. So I can say for sure, “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, they are distributed to the lottery retailers throughout the state. Most small convenience stores offer instant lottery tickets, along with the large chain stores. You can usually see 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 could 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 can be used to generate 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 necessary for Ohio’s public education. In Missouri, approximately 27.3 cents of every dollar allocated to 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 in the form of commissions, incentives and bonuses. In all, more than 93 cents of every dollar stays in Missouri. It’s different for each and every state, but the lottery is very beneficial regardless of 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 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’re throwing money away ? Yes, there are literally hundreds if not a large number of folks around the world that would love to purchase 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 an area convenience store and asked them if I could have a bag of losing instant lottery tickets I saw that 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 going to throw them away.
Where did I sell them ? On eBay. I happened to check one day and I noticed there is losing instant lottery tickets on the market on the eBay auction website. There are 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 becoming a big thing. There are Togel Singapore 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. 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 named: 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 can find many sites collecting, selling and buying used non-winning instant lottery tickets.