Buying Scratch Off Tickets
State laws and regulations do not permit the sale of tickets by mail, phone, or Internet. Also, federal laws and regulations may restrict such sales. You must buy your tickets from a licensed retailer here in Texas.
buying scratch off tickets
Draw Game (Lotto Texas, Mega Millions, Powerball, Cash Five, Pick 3, Daily 4, Texas Two Step and All or Nothing) winning tickets are valid for 180 days from the date of the drawing. Scratch tickets are valid for 180 days from the close date of the game set by the Texas Lottery.
All retailers are authorized, but not required, to pay prizes of $599 or less. Retailers are not required to keep cash on hand to pay all tickets. They have the option of paying by check or money order. If they choose to pay by money order, they may not charge the player any fee for the money order.
You may also submit your ticket to the Texas Lottery Commission, Attn: Claim Center, PO Box 16600, Austin, Texas 78761-6600. Please include a detailed letter with as much information as possible (date, time, location of ticket purchase, any other retailer locations where you tried to redeem the ticket, etc.). We will research the ticket and contact you with our findings. The Texas Lottery Commission is not responsible for tickets lost or damaged in the mail.
You may contact the Texas Lottery at 800-375-6886 during normal business hours (M-F 7:00 a.m.-5:30 p.m., Central Time) and select the Licensing option from the recorded menu. A Licensing Representative will be happy to provide you with information on the basic requirements for becoming a Texas Lottery retailer. A Licensing Representative would also be glad to mail you an Application For A Lottery Sales Agent's License. The application will contain information on how having Texas Lottery tickets available in your retail location may benefit your business.
Four (4) distinct tones play on lottery terminals to let players know the status of their winning and non-winning tickets. You may listen to samples of each unique tone on the Texas Lottery website. Each time a ticket is scanned for inquiry or validation a distinct tone will identify one of the following results: 1) Prize winning tickets under $600 and free tickets. 2) Prize winning tickets of $600 and higher and non-cash prizes. These prizes can only be paid at a Texas Lottery claim center. 3) Non-winning tickets. 4) Retailer cannot validate (variety of reasons such as inactive pack, expired ticket, previously paid, etc.)
You can now use existing tickets to purchase new tickets printed with your same favorite numbers! With the exciting new "Play It Again" feature, New Jersey Lottery retailers can simply scan your ticket to produce a new one for the same game, numbers, and wager amount.
For information regarding the estimated number of top prizes remaining and the estimated value of remaining or unclaimed total prizes, the last day to sell tickets, or the last day to claim a prize, Click Here. Information updated daily.
Yes, you can buy scratch off tickets with a credit card. Just make sure there are no state laws that prohibit this practice and both the merchant selling them and your credit card issuer allows it. However, doing so is not a good idea.
The unusual winning streak first came to light in Indiana after the apparent leader of the group, a 27-year-old Princeton University graduate named Manuel Montori IV, cashed in 61 winning Hoosier Lottery scratch-off tickets on a single day in September.
Their biggest payday came a week after the Hoosier Lottery bonanza. Montori collected a $5 million top prize from a scratch-off ticket in Missouri on Oct. 6. Other winnings identified by IndyStar include:
They also had a 1-in-5 shot at another $1 million in a Hoosier Lottery second chance drawing at the Indiana State Fair last year. Gibbons was one of the finalists selected from players who submitted non-winning tickets. He didn't win that one, but did collect a $500 consolation prize.
She said two women who identified themselves as Hannah and Zoe were involved in purchasing as many as 400 tickets at time during several visits that began in May. They said they were working for a man conducting a study and the results would later be shared on YouTube.
This summer in Missouri, two women snatched up thousands of $5,000,000 Cash Extravaganza tickets during a series of visits to Break Time, a convenience store and gas station near a busy I-70 interchange in Columbia.
The spree unfolded as the lottery was preparing to close the game. It had been in operation for several years, but at least one of the three top prize tickets remained unclaimed as the clock ticked down.
Each book included 20 scratch-off tickets, which sold for $20 each. That meant the women were dropping $8,000 a visit. The manager said they paid with cash or cashier's checks, and they weren't just buying at Break Time.
For example, the odds of winning the $7 million jackpot in the Hoosier Lottery scratch-off game was about one in 2,691,807. Even if the group improved those odds and purchased thousands of tickets, they would still face a significant risk of missing the jackpot.
"To win multiple jackpots, I think it's incredibly rare. But there's a lot of variables that go into that in terms of how many tickets are they buying and so on," he said. "I don't know how they're doing it, but they must have access to information most likely that the average person doesn't... my guess is that (lotteries) are not putting out enough information that you could use some fancy data science algorithms to figure this out."
"We do it so that there's transparency to our players, so they understand what tickets that they're playing and what money still left on those tickets. It's an industry standard," explained Nicole G. Jordan, director of marketing and communications for the D.C. Lottery.
Jordan said the information also can be a resource for players, if they choose to use it. "Some people are better gamblers," she said. "So they're looking to see what top prizes are still available." It is not uncommon for some players to buy large numbers of tickets, she added, but the amount purchased by the Black Swan group is not something most individual players could do.
Most states have adopted lotteries since the 1980s as a source of government revenue. At least six other states sell $50 scratch-off tickets, according to the website Lotto Edge. Texas offers six instant games at that price.
While the Florida Lottery has continued to sell an array of $1 scratch-off tickets, the state added a $2 scratch-off ticket in 1993 and introduced its first $5 game five years later. The top price for an instant game leaped to $10 in 2002 and then to $20 in 2004 with the Gold Rush game.
The first $30 scratch-off game, called $600 Million High Roller, debuted in 2008. The state rolled out another $30 ticket, Fastest Road to $1,000,000, in 2020 but did not push the price threshold higher until the release of the $50 ticket on Feb. 28.
Lakeland resident Michael Wilson was invited a few years ago to join Flamingo Forum, a private online group the Florida Lottery consults for research on its games. Wilson said the state began raising the possibility of launching a $50 scratch-off ticket last year.
The state lists the overall odds of collecting a payout of any amount on the $50 ticket at one in 4.5. That means that, statistically speaking, more than three of every four tickets sold are losers. (The Florida Lottery also offers a second-chance drawing for non-winning tickets with prizes of up to $25,000.)
M.D. Hossain, working the counter at C&O Food Mart on Central Avenue, estimated that he sells three to five of the $50 tickets a day. Hossain, who also works at another convenience store, said he has cashed in plenty of $100 winners on those tickets.
Arnie Wexler, a certified compulsive gambling counselor, served for eight years as executive director of the Council on Compulsive Gambling of New Jersey. Wexler, a recovering gambling addict, said that lottery tickets add to the risk of abuse for people with a genetic inclination toward excessive gambling.
While living in New York in the 1960s, Wexler said, he spent $50 to $100 a day on lottery tickets, in addition to money he spent in daily trips to a horse racing track. He said he was stealing to support his gambling habit while earning only $60 a week.
A 2011 paper published in the Journal of Gambling Studies concluded that the poor are the leading purchasers of lottery tickets. Another report, published in 2010 in the Journal of Community Psychology, found that lottery outlets are often situated in neighborhoods with high percentages of minority residents, according to a summary from the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School.
Hossain, the convenience store clerk, said that lottery ticket sales rise 30% to 40% during tax season. Some customers receive federal income tax refunds and spend much or all of the money on scratch-offs, he said.
Cash Value: $71,400,000 Must be 18 to buy. Jackpot prize is estimated annuitized and will be divided equally among all winning tickets. Prizes equal 50% of overall sales. Overall odds of winning 1 in 24.9. Odds of winning jackpot prize 1 in 292 million.
Cash Value: $187,600,000 Must be 18 to buy. Jackpot prize is estimated annuitized and will be divided equally among all winning tickets. Prizes equal 50% of overall sales. Overall odds of winning 1 in 24. Odds of winning jackpot prize 1 in 302 million.
Estimated Cash Value $5,750,000. Must be 18 to buy. Jackpot prize is annuitized and will be divided equally among all winning tickets. Prizes equal 50% of sales. Overall odds of winning 1 in 8. Odds of winning jackpot prize 1 in 31 million. 041b061a72