Perhaps you recall the concept of MO Money Monday. The day that Missouri Lottery releases new scratcher tickets. They don't list them online until after midnight on the Sunday night before Monday. Stores can put them out then. You can see a list of prizes that have been paid. So there are either people standing in convenience stores waiting to get the new tickets after midnight (I'm not THAT addicted), or else some naughty proprietors are selling them early, and the results get reported as the new tickets go online. Though how stores could get their new tickets early is BEYOOOOND me!
Anyhoo... I had looked up the new tickets (I AM up after midnight, you know). I told The Pony the next morning, and had plans to buy a couple while in town around 2:30.
REEEEEEEE!!!
There goes my vintage phonograph record again! Mrs. Hillbilly Mom plans, The Universe laughs.
As I walked to the counter of the Gas Station Chicken Store, magical elixir in hand, I saw that the Man Owner was puttering around back there. A young guy walked in the door and stood back.
"You can go ahead."
"No. You go." He turned to use the bathrooms that are now open again.
The new guy waited on me. The ticket-holding counter was slid out from the glass case.
"Oh, do you have your new tickets?"
"Well. We DO. But Man Owner [he had since headed to the office in the back] brought out the wrong tickets."
"Oh. Well. I'll get some tomorrow. I don't want to make anybody wait."
The polite bathroom guy was out, waiting behind me. If he had only gone ahead, the new tickets might have been brought up front, and nobody would be waiting for me to complete my transaction.
This is the second month in a row that the tickets have been delayed. The Gas Station Chicken Store used to have them out before 10:30 a.m. So obviously their delivery person, a state employee, is getting them there late.
Sweet Gummi Mary! Is it too much to ask that we get the MO Money Monday
tickets on MONDAY? I feel like Hillmomba is becoming a 4th world
country!
The stores get their supplies early, they just aren't allowed to put them out before midnight. But how are prizes already paid when tickets can't be bought? You said they list the prizes paid when the tickets are put out. Either someone is illegally buying early, or the prizes paid list is false just put there to tempt players. Or maybe I've got things mixed up.
ReplyDeleteRiver,
ReplyDeleteThere are only 4 official lottery offices in the whole state: Jefferson City, Kansas City, St. Louis, and Springfield. I imagine the tickets are distributed from these offices. I don't have any proof, but it would seem like they're pretty much under lock and key. Lottery is a big business.
I know that our stores have a representative who drives the tickets to them on the first Monday. They also make regular deliveries every week. The owners of the Gas Station Chicken store have told me.
I'm guessing that stores in the cities might get theirs earlier? Or certain vending machines are stocked so they're ready to go when the new tickets are released. When winning tickets are scanned officially to be redeemed, they show up on the website list as being won.
I have looked up the new tickets online, and their prize lists, and seen that some winners have been won already at midnight. That's all I can explain. Somehow, people are buying tickets before 12:00 a.m. It could be from vending machines. You can scan in a winner, and it gives you the credit in the machine, I think. Of course nobody would do this for a BIG winner! Machines don't give change! The winners I see early are anywhere from $5 to maybe $100.
I'm pretty sure it's not a scam to make people THINK prizes have been won. And if it was a problem of them being released early, I'm sure the lottery commission could track down the store by the code numbers on the winners. I guess it's not a big deal to them if a few get sold early.