Quote: Originally posted by OneTrickpony on Feb 28, 2016
I quit playing scratch-offs as the odds just seem to be getting worse and worse. Also, I grew very suspicious of convenience store workers/owners regarding winning tickets.
With $100 'seed' money, I bought five $20 tickets for a game that still had a majority of large prizes available even though it had been around for about a year. I went to 3 different convenience stores for my tickets. At the largest store, the ticket that they gave me was all mangled up on the top part. They kept their ticket dispensers under the counter so the ticket was partially exposed to damage from passing workers.
After scratching them all, I won $220! One of the $100 winners (I had 2) was that mangled ticket. I went back to the store that sold it to me to cash it in. The older guy behind the counter looked at the mangled ticket and recognized it right away. "You bought this ticket here." A statement, not a question.
He put it in the machine and he looked shocked and dismayed, like he had lost something. He looked at the younger guy behind the counter with him, threw his hand up in the air with the ticket and said "It was a hundred dollar winner! THAT ticket that was here for so long! A hundred dollar winner!" Then 'tsked', shook his head and looked very disgusted.
I may not be the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree, but his reaction did not sit well with me. He practically threw the money at me, like I was stealing from him. I don't care how much the State Lottery insists that there is no corruption at the playing level, I just don't trust the store owners or workers.
Never again.
