Buying and scratching instant lottery tickets is something which almost everyone did at one time or another. For some people it’s probably something they do too often. I suppose for me personally, the bad buying habit is junk food. If I had spent my extra cash on instant lottery tickets through the years, I might have been rich by now instead of overweight. Like anything, whether it’s food or gambling one need to do it in moderation, and that’s often not easy to do.
Within the state of Pennsylvania where I live, the first scratch off ticket came out in 1975, and they’ve been a large hit every since.
I have bought instant lottery tickets of every available price range within my state. I usually purchase the $1 – $2 tickets, but once in awhile I purchase a $5 – $10 ticket, and one time, I purchased a $20 instant ticket. I won nothing on the $20 ticket, not really $1 or a FREE ticket, so that was like throwing away my $20. You would believe that with having to spend very much money, they’d give everyone at the very least a FREE $1 ticket or something. I thought afterwards that I was kind of foolish for spending and losing the $20 on a single ticket, but heck reported by users, “If you don’t play, you can’t win !”, it absolutely was a chance, and I didn’t win that time. I have known two people who each won near $20,000 on instant lottery tickets. So I will say for certain, “yes, some people 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, then 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. You are able to usually locate them in a vending machine with multiple styles and prices to select from, or they are at the cashiers area on the counter or behind a shielded section. Instant lottery tickets sell for as little as $1 and as high as $20 each generally in most states of the U.S. but some states could have tickets that sell for only a lot more than $20 each.luckybet678
States do instant lotteries to simply help fund a variety of programs. As an example 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 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 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 most, a lot more than 93 cents of every dollar stays in Missouri. It’s different for every single state, however the lottery is very beneficial inspite of the few problems it could cause for 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 realize that every time you throw a losing instant lottery ticket in the trash, you are throwing money away ? Yes, there are literally hundreds or even thousands of folks all over the world that will love to buy your tickets from you. I have observed losing lottery tickets sell for as high as $15 each, we were holding tickets that had no redeemable value. I once went to a nearby convenience store and asked them if I possibly could have a bag of losing instant lottery tickets I saw they’d 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 which were $1 winners which were not redeemed, and I sold the residual 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 1 day and I noticed there is 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 of the time. I just did a search now while writing this informative 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 all over the world, that love collecting lottery tickets. There are lots of websites, discussion groups and forums now simply for lottery ticket collecting. Actually there is even a fresh term or term for an instantaneous lottery ticket collector: LOTOLOGIST, and the instant lottery ticket collecting hobby is named: LOTOLOGY. To see how big this hobby is now just visit your chosen se, such as GOOGLE, and do a seek out: lotologist OR lotology. And you can find many sites collecting, selling and buying used non-winning instant lottery tickets.
Winning the Lottery: The First National Lottery
In the centre 18th century, a distinctive event occurred in France. Due to the potential for fixing the results in privately operated lotteries, Giacomo Girolamo Casanova (1725 – 1798) persuaded Louis XV of France to found the first state-owned monopoly lottery, the Loterie Royale of the Military School, which became the forerunner of the Loterie Nationale. All the lotteries in France were outlawed. The lottery was a Keno style game, where players could select 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 numbers between 1 and 90. (Incidentally, Casanova owned a pastime in the newest lottery and became wealthy consequently, but sold his interest shortly afterwards and lost the proceeds through unwise investments; sounds just like some modern lottery winners, doesn’t it?)
Origin of American Lotteries
In the 18th century, lotteries were well under way in America, primarily to fund some venture or as a means out of debt. The very first began in Massachusetts in 1744 due to military debts. The first national lottery was started by the Continental Congress in 1776 to raise funds for the American Revolution. The Founding Fathers were concerned less with how exactly to win the lottery but with how to raise funds using lotteries. Lots of the Founding Fathers played and sponsored lotteries:
- Benjamin Franklin used lotteries to finance cannons for the Revolutionary War.
- Thomas Jefferson, who had been $80,000 in debt by the end of his life, used a lottery to dispose of most of his property. Winning this lottery could have given you a priceless little bit of American heritage!
- John Hancock operated a lottery to finance the rebuild of historic Faneuil Hall in Boston.
- George Washington financed construction of the Mountain Road, which opened expansion West of Virginia, by operating a lottery.
Additionally, public lotteries helped build several American universities, including Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Princeton, Brown and Dartmouth. Winning these lotteries was a major contribution to the continuing future of American education.