Megabucks! - The Secret Life Of Lottery Tickets
You see it whenever you fill up your gas tank, the constant nagging reminder of how much the current state lottery is sitting at. Millions upon millions of dollars sitting, waiting for you to buy a ticket, waiting for you to fulfill your destiny by selecting the \”winning\” lottery tickets. This made me wonder about the secret life of a lottery ticket. How does our lottery in the states compare with how lotteries are played elsewhere in the world? I dove in to find out.
No matter where the lottery is in the world people are sure to have a system they use in choosing the number they believe will win them the money. They might think their system unique, but it is usually some version of numbers they can easily remember like their birthday, anniversary, or other significant dates that they believe will be lucky for them. In recent years many Americans have selected the numbers from the television show Lost. What reaction would there be if over 18 million people had to split the winning jackpot? The situation of millions of people choosing the same number did not exist in the UK where their lottery system differs from ours.
The lottery in America and the UK National lottery differ mostly in how it is played. Americans must go to a store and purchase a lottery ticket. People in the UK can play the lottery daily online. This allows them to easily track the numbers they played in the past and choose them over and over again if the want and check how their numbers compare with the winning numbers by simply entering them into a box on the National Lottery website. It seems like the Europeans are far more advanced in their access to playing the lottery.
Why hasn’t America leaped forward in our lottery selection process? I really don’t know. It seems that the lottery in America is still frowned upon by many as the evils of gambling, which means it’s restricted to the back alleys and dark corners of back alley poker games in many states in the Union. However, what some of these anti-lotto advocates might overlook is how the lottery can revitalize the economy in certain states, and that lifting the state veil of rules on how and when to play can actually benefit the economy in some ways.
We cannot blame Americaas sagging economy on its attitude to the lottery. Yet we canat help but wonder how implementing a national lottery online might help contribute to the well-being of its people if just a small portion of the proceeds was directed to under-funded programs or to reducing the national debt.
The possibilities are endless when we consider ways in which we might implement a nation wide lottery website similar to the UK. Those opposed to the gambling aspect of the lottery and its harmful effects on those who cannot stop, might be interested in the benefits of an online system that can track and limit the amount of money any one individual can play. Such constraints are not possible with our current store purchase system.
America could have a National Lottery website that is governed by its citizens. Millions could become available by giving just pennies per ticket to causes we all support. This could be done without altering what individual states do with their lotteries.
What does this mean to you and I? Well it means that gone are the days in Europe where you have a wadded up lottery ticket in a pair of jeans or shoved in the bottom of a purse…the ticket that could very well be the winning one, accidentally thrown away or covered in spilled coffee. It means that claiming your winnings could be as simple as one mouse click away. This is the future of the lottery, and so ends, the secret life of lottery tickets with the revolution of online gaming.
