Buying and scratching instant lottery tickets is something 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, the bad buying habit is junk food. EASILY had spent my extra money 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, and that 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’ve bought instant lottery tickets of each available price range in my own state. I usually buy the $1 – $2 tickets, but once in awhile I purchase 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 that with having 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 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. So I can say for certain, “yes, some people do win it big.”
Unlike prediksi hongkong that’s usually drawn by picking numbers, the instant lottery is pre-determined months ahead of 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, in addition to the large chain stores. It is possible to usually find 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 only $1 so when 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 can be 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 allocated to 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 each state, but the lottery is very 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 really win anything, they throw the tickets in the trash. Did you know that every time you throw a losing instant lottery ticket in the trash, you’re 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. 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 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 all of them, I found two that were $1 winners which 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 check one 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 at all times. 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 becoming a big thing. There are groups and individuals all around the world, that love collecting lottery tickets. There are plenty of websites, discussion groups and forums now simply for lottery ticket collecting. In fact there is a good new term or name for an instantaneous lottery ticket collector: LOTOLOGIST, and the moment lottery ticket collecting hobby is called: LOTOLOGY. To see how big this hobby is now just visit your favorite internet search engine, such as GOOGLE, and do a search for: lotologist OR lotology. And you will find many sites collecting, buying and selling used non-winning instant lottery tickets.