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 frequently. I guess for me, the bad buying habit is junk food. If I had spent my extra cash 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 you have to do it in moderation, and that is often not easy to do.

Here within the state of Pennsylvania where I live, the 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, to ensure that was like throwing away my $20. You would believe that with having to spend that much cash, they would give everyone at least a no cost $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 did not 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 can be distributed to the lottery retailers through the state. Most small convenience stores offer instant lottery tickets, as well as the large chain stores. You may usually find them in a vending machine with multiple styles and price ranges to pick from, or they can be 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 united states 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% of the funding needed for Ohio's public education. In Missouri, approximately 27.3 cents of every dollar spent on the Lottery benefits curriculum; 61.6 cents goes back to players as prizes, 5 cents is used for administrative costs and 6.1 cents goes to retailers within 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, although 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 whenever 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 in the trash, you are throwing money away ? Yes, you will discover literally hundreds if not thousands of folks throughout 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 which were $1 winners that were not redeemed, and I sold the remaining losing tickets for $30, and also 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 actually folks selling non-winning, so called 'worthless' lottery tickets on eBay all of 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 over the world, that love collecting lottery tickets. There are plenty of websites, 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, and also the instant lottery ticket collecting hobby is called: LOTOLOGY. To find out how big this hobby is becoming just visit your favorite search engine, such as GOOGLE, and do a search for: lotologist OR lotology. As well as you can find many sites collecting, selling and buying used non-winning instant lottery tickets.