Buying and scratching instant lottery tickets is something that almost everyone has done at once or another. For a few folks it’s probably something they do too often. I guess for me personally, the bad buying habit is processed foods. EASILY had spent my extra cash on instant lottery tickets over time, I may have been rich by now rather than overweight. Like anything, be it food or gambling one should do it in moderation, which 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 every available price range in my state. I usually choose the $1 – $2 tickets, but from time to time I purchase a $5 – $10 ticket, and one time, I purchased a $20 instant ticket. เลขเด็ดfacebook 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 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 on one ticket, but heck as the saying goes, “If you don’t play, you can’t win !”, it was a gamble, and I didn’t win that point. I’ve 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’s usually drawn by picking numbers, the moment lottery is pre-determined months ahead of it’s release. The tickets were created and printed, then they are distributed to the lottery retailers through the entire state. Most small convenience stores offer instant lottery tickets, as well as the large chain stores. You can usually see 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 generally 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 greatly 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 spent on the Lottery benefits education programs; 61.6 cents dates 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 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 could cause to some, in the form 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 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, these 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 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. You can find folks selling non-winning, so called ‘worthless’ lottery tickets on eBay on a regular basis. I just did a search now while writing this 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 groups and individuals all over the world, that love collecting lottery tickets. There are numerous 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 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 will find many sites collecting, buying and selling used non-winning instant lottery tickets.