I like how NC is starting the vending machines on Lottery tickets. I experienced this way in California too.

wow they are really catching up....i like the vending machines. Texas has them and it makes it much easier to purchase scratch offs.  Its a lil irritating when you are feeling lucky and wanna buy 10 tickets and the clerk is trying to give you advice on what to spend your money on.

With the machines you can just walk up, put your money in, get your tickets and leave. Its great.

You can dress a pig up and put lipstick on it, but it is still a pig.

Unless NC raises the payout percentages on instant games to be competitive with neighboring states, then it's all window dressing... 

lmaooooo

KY has these machines too but I never play them. I think I've seen them in Illinois and Iowa too.

We have one of them at my local Food Lion store, I thought it was a video rental machine at first glance...lol. I like the idea that you dont have to wait on the less than caring if they sell any lottery tickets store attendants that are around here even though i dont play many scratchoffs. Most of the stores i've frequented around here, you have to wait till the other 10 or 12 people in line get done with their transactions before they even worry about a lottery sale.

There are times that I like to buy my online lottery tickets at a specific hour and minute, and it bugs me to no end to have someone in front of me trying to decide which scratch-if they want to buy.  Don't they know that at a precise moment in time, that lottery terminal machine is apt to spit out the winning combination for the Mega Millions, Powerball, or state lotto and they would be responsible for me missing that moment.

JUST KIDDING!

This is a Cigarette Machine, same thing, different addiction. I can remember as a kid going into bars or other places and buying some smokes. I do think owners/clerks will become sedentary and lazy and not even check to see if someone is of age at some point after install.

I personally look at the scratch-off vending machines as a very good thing, because there is less of a chance that some less-than-scrupulous employee has gone through the rolls trying to "micro-scratch" the codes to pull out winners.

Good point Todd, I have supected several stores in SC of pulling out the winners.  Of course I could not prove it.

Good point about the lesser of two evils.

BIG deal. They have these vending machines in nj and I think PA and WV. Nobody uses them much. The tickets that they have are so old they smell like someone's attic and I never won anything any time I used them. And really most of the time you got people that buy half the roll of tickets at a time and these machines trickle out one at a time so it's harder to spend as much as fast.

I like that fact too. However, most of those machines won't necessarily have the game(s) that you are wanting to buy, unless you find one that you go to regularly that has your game of choice.

But it doesn't change the fact that the payouts in NC are so far below everyone else.

Good point...this could encourage underage scratching...