Some of the posts in here made me remember another piece of advice for you.
Some regular players scoff at the "lower" price tickets because of the relatively smaller top prizes. My advice is not to do that and this is why.
In the other thread I told you about how for my really small small town we have had winners of 30K, two 100K's, two 250K's and a 300K in just
the last few years, I forgot to mention that one of the two 100K's were on a $5 scratcher and the smallest of the wins, the 30K win, came on a $30
ticket that just came out in PA. It's the most expensive ticket I've ever seen in PA and we haven't had anything larger than twenty in at least 10 or more
years. While it's true the more expensive tickets have higher prizes, the little ones still have some great prizes. 20K, 30K or even 50K might not be enough
for you to quit working forever but it really can give you a lot of financial security!
Secondly, if your state has it, make sure to check the remaining prizes for the tickets your going to play regularly. I'm more of a numbers kinda guy myself so I
like to go on an analyze the payouts over the ticket costs and the odds and so on. For example, PA came out with a $20 ticket called "Golden Ticket" recently and while it's odds are somewhat in line with the rest of the other $20 scratch cards... it seems to have way more $250 and $500 winners and less of the prizes in the range of $5K - $10K. Which is fine by me, because on anything under $600 you do not have to report it! Here in PA if you hit anything over $600 they automatically give you a claim form and file the win so that uncle sam gets his share. This is apposed to the very newest $20 which has way less $250 and $500 winners but has more higher priced winners. Your odds are not as good to hit a bigger winner, and then if you do hit you have to give some of it back!
Also golden ticket still has 4 of it's top prizes of $1,000,000.00 left. So I am more inclined to play it, than say a ticket that might only have one or two left. I'm more or less "playing" for those $500 and $250 wins but by playing tickets with more top prizes left I still have a "chance" at winning those as well.