Buying and scratching instant lottery tickets is one area that just about everyone has done at one time or another. For some folks it’s probably something they do too frequently. I guess for me, the bad buying habit is junk food. If I had spent my extra money on instant lottery tickets throughout the years, I may happen to be rich by now in place of overweight. Like anything, whether it’s food or gambling one must do it in moderation, and that is often challenging to do.

Here within the state of Pennsylvania where I live, the very first scratch off ticket came out in 1975, and they happen to be 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, in order that was like throwing away my $20. You would feel that with having to spend that much money, they would give everybody at least a zero cost $1 ticket or something. I thought afterwards that I was sort of foolish for spending and losing the $20 on one ticket, but heck because they say, “If you do not play, you can not win !”, it was a gamble, and I didn’t win that time. I have known two people that each won near twenty thousand dollars 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 may be distributed to the lottery retailers through the state. Most small convenience stores offer instant lottery tickets, and 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 all the way to $20 each for 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 teaching 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 of the, more than 93 cents of every dollar stays in Missouri. It’s different for every state, though the lottery is quite beneficial in spite of 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 within the trash. Did you realize that every time you throw a losing instant lottery ticket within the trash, you are throwing money away ? Yes, there are actually literally hundreds if not thousands of folks all over the world that might love to buy your tickets from you. I have seen losing lottery tickets sell for up to $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 who were $1 winners that were not redeemed, and I sold the remaining losing tickets for $30, as well as 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. You will discover 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 being a big thing. You will find groups and individuals all around the world, that love collecting lottery tickets. There are several web pages, simply click Unicom discussion groups and forums now just for lottery ticket collecting. In fact there is even a brand new term or name for an instant lottery ticket collector: LOTOLOGIST, as well as the instant lottery ticket collecting hobby is called: LOTOLOGY. To view how big this hobby is becoming just visit your favorite search engine, such as GOOGLE, and do a look for: lotologist OR lotology. And you’ll find many sites collecting, selling and buying used non-winning instant lottery tickets.