S.C. Lottery scratch games sold after top prize won

Dec 15, 2004, 9:49 am (2 comments)

South Carolina Lottery

The South Carolina Education Lottery offers dozens of ways to scratch off and win and buy the right card and you could win first prize cash ranging up to a quarter million dollars.

That is, if someone hasn't already claimed the top prize. One card for the $30,000 cash bonus game for instance, was still on sale Tuesday, even though someone has already won the $30,000 jackpot.

Scratch off games have varying lifespans with some as long as a couple of years or only a few months.

The Lottery Commission stopped sales on the Carolina Crossword and Lucky Times Four. Lottery spokeswoman Tara Robertson says someone won the $4000 jackpot with Lucky Times Four, but the lottery doesn't pull every game when the top prize is gone, "We do the best that we can, getting that information out. We have different venues. And I think the disclaimer on the ticket says it all, it says 'Win up to.' So there is a possibility that when you play, you may not win the top prize."

Retailers like Linda Foster get regular updates when the games are terminated, but they don't always know whether they're selling chances for a prize that really doesn't exist, "I never know, I mean when they win the bonus. Even when they stop some of them, I mean I don't know if they won it or not, but I assume they have."

Robertson says most buyers understand their cards might be good for lesser prizes at best, "Some of the focus groups that we've had, players have told us that they are playing for that mid-tier prize because they know the top prize, the odds of winning is against them."

Her advice for scratch card players is check for updates in stores or on the education lottery website.

Lottery Post Staff

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Bradly_60's avatarBradly_60

I fail to see what the problem with this is.  The lottery can't save the last top prize winner for the last ticket of the game.  That would be rediculous.  Its the players responsibility to find out if there are any top prizes left.  If there isn't and you don't like it....don't by them.  There are tons of lower tier prizes of good value still out there.  Your thoughts?

Brad

four4me

Yea this is another tough one lottery sells the tickets to the store owners. The store owners sells the tickets to people if I won 100,000 grand and keep the ticket for 3 weeks or more who's to know it was sold except me. On the other hand if I cash it in right away and it was one of the first thousand tickets of possibly 1,000,000 printed tickets and they stooped payment on all the other prizes who's gonna redeem the store owners. There's a lot more to this story than we know. There are all types of scratcher ticket sales some games keep going and going like bingo scratchers. In Maryland they have about three versions or pack number of these games being sold at the same time and I know at least two of them have sold the top prize yet they still continue to sell the remaining tickets at different places.

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