While making my selections at the right-side lottery machine of 10Box on Monday, a lady left the checkout with her purchases, and stopped a short distance from me. I thought maybe my cart was in her way, though I had made sure it was not in front of the left-side machine, lest anybody want to buy tickets.
"Oh. Sorry. Let me move this." I repositioned my cart.
"No, that's fine." The Lady came over and picked up some discarded lottery tickets from the small wastebasket between the two machines. She hovered there a minute.
"Here are two more, if you want them," I said as I finished scanning my second winner for money to be applied to my machine for the tickets I wanted to get.
"Okay. Have you scanned them? And you're not a millionaire yet?"
"Heh, heh! Yes, I've scanned them. And no, I'm not a millionaire quite yet!"
I felt bad, because if The Lady was planning to scan them for points, I'd already done that at home. I've only been doing it on every ticket since I won that $300 weekly drawing. I will stop doing it after the contest is over. Which I think is happening in a couple weeks. Normally, my cast-off losers would be great for people who like scanning in points and using them to enter other contests, or buy online draw tickets, which don't appeal to me.
Anyhoo... I kept The Lady from feeling awkward about standing there waiting to bend over and grab my trash. Even if there was nothing material in it for her THIS TIME. In the future, my trash could be a gold mine for pickers.
She may use those for income tax purposes to offset against any taxable gains she has for the year, I save mine for that. Unfortunately, I haven’t had any gains that need to be offset.
ReplyDeleteOh! I didn't think of that. I used to save mine, but after years of not needing them, I stopped. I know the tickets I buy regularly, and estimate from that over the year's time. I also know I generally win back 40% unless it's a big winner, like a $1000, and there's paperwork and my blog bragging for that when I cash them in.
DeleteScanning for points is something I've never heard of, maybe we don't do that here. Any scratchers I buy (rarely) get ripped up and tossed in my waste basket if they are losers.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if all states do it. But here, you can scan the losers or winners for points, to use for buying online tickets, or entering promotional contests. They used to have a kind of "supermarket" where you could "buy" actual items. There were tiers for point amounts. I liked looking at the selections, and I think I actually "ordered" one of the prizes for Farmer H.
DeleteNow it's just the contests, or the draw tickets, or printing up a voucher to buy scratchers, or show it on your phone, I suppose. I don't have a good printer, and I don't like using the phone. So not a thing for me. It's not dollar-for-dollar of what you spend. So I'm not missing a lot.