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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 too often. I guess for me, the bad buying habit is
junk food. If I had spent my extra money on instant lottery tickets
over the years, I may have been rich by now instead of overweight. Like
anything, whether it's food or gambling one must 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 have bought instant lottery tickets of every available price range in
my state. I usually buy the $1 - $2 tickets, but once in awhile I buy 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, so that was
like throwing away my $20. You would think that with having 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 on one ticket, but heck as they say, "If you don't
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 sure, "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 ahead of 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, as well as the large chain stores. You
can usually find them in a vending machine with multiple styles and
price ranges 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 and as high as $20 each in most states of the U.S. but
some 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 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 spent on 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 goes 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 every state, but
the lottery is very beneficial despite the few problems it can cause to
some, in the form of gambling addictions.
Most folks buy instant (scratch off) tickets, and if they don't 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 are
throwing money away ? Yes, there are literally hundreds if not
thousands of folks around the world that would love to buy your tickets
from you. I have seen losing lottery tickets sell for as high as $15
each, these were tickets that had no redeemable value. I once went to a
local convenience store and asked them if I 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 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 one day and I
noticed there was losing instant lottery tickets for sale on the eBay
auction website. There are 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 becoming a big thing. There
are groups and individuals all around the world, that love collecting
lottery tickets. There are many websites, discussion groups and forums
now just for lottery ticket collecting. In fact there is even a new
term or name for an instant lottery ticket collector: LOTOLOGIST, and
the instant lottery ticket collecting hobby is called: LOTOLOGY. To see
how big this hobby is becoming just visit your favorite search engine,
such as GOOGLE, and do a search for: lotologist OR lotology. And you
can find many sites collecting, selling and buying used non-winning
instant lottery tickets.
One unique website is the 'Pennsylvania Lottery Merchandise
Museum' - They will buy or accept donations of Pennsylvania
Lottery Merchandise. The Museum has all of their lottery merchandise
online for visitors to easily view, you can visit the museum at this
website address:
http://www.rb59.com/palot.htm
There is Computer Software that is made just for collecting instant
lottery tickets. The software is called: ' Lottery Ticket Collector
Professional ', you can download and try the software for free at this
website address:
You may publish this article in your ezine, newsletter or on your web
site as long as it is reprinted in its entirety and without
modification except for formatting needs or grammar corrections.
Robert W. Benjamin has been in the software business on the internet
for over 5 years, and has been producing low-cost software for the past
25+ years. He first released software on the AMIGA and C64 computer
systems in the late 1970's-80's.
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Article added to SearchWarp.com on 3/18/2006 11:10:11 AM. View other articles written byRobert Benjamin(1,721)
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