Two thoughts here.
First..
I have a friend who owns the local party store. Sells lotto and scratch offs. He says in our area (small population) he doesn't activate the $10 and $20 tickets since he says from history no one buys them.. but the state continually sends them to him. So they sit in the back room til he sends them back... possibly months.
So, how many of those rolls do you think have big winners on them? He thinks the state knows he has history of not activating, so they send him rolls that they know have big winners but never get activated, get sent back to state and state never has to pay out on them. He thinks the state "knows" which rolls have the winners but they can never get called out on the mat since the tickets are "supposedly" in circulation.. rolls were made, sent out but not activated.. not their fault.
Think about, every checked your lottery site to see how many remaining prizes are left out there on scratch offs and there is always one or two that are a couple of years old that the major jackpot haven't been cashed in? We have two right now in Michigan, one game was released in 2011 and still has two $300K jackpots still out there. Another one from 2012 where a $500K jackpot is still outstanding. Also to many to count whose top jackpots are still available and the game is over a year going on two years old... where do you think these tickets are?
Anyones' thoughts on this?
2nd thought..
I have heard several people say that tickets out of the machines pay better than the tickets bought over the counter, since the tickets from machine, their profits don't have to get paid to the store since they are paid to the vendor loading the machines? So, the vendors have an edge since they have less overhead as compared to the stores and the stores want more profit on the tickets? Not sure how this makes sense or even possible? But, am curious if anyone thinks they have won better out of the ticket machines versus over the counter from the retailer?
Just a curiosity..
LottoMomma