Like chips and soda, now you can buy lottery tickets from lottery ticket vending machine.
The lottery began installing 500 machines statewide last week. The vending machines sell 24 games costing $1 to $10 each.
Many will go into supermarkets, said Alice Garland, lottery deputy executive director. Some will land in convenience stores with high ticket sales to free up clerks.
Lottery ticket vending machine is not new to state lotteries. Maryland has used them since 1998, while Virginia first installed machines in 1990.
States try to prevent players under 18 from using the anonymity of the machines to illegally buy tickets.
The state also “strongly recommends” that store owners place machines within sight of clerks, she said. Some states, including Maryland and Virginia, said they require stores to place the machines where workers can watch them.
Fun Facts with Lottery Ticket
- The first recorded instance of a lottery are keno slips from ancient China dating to between 201 and 187 BC. The lotteries most likely helped finance large government projects, such as the Great Wall of China.
- Roman Augustus Caesar held the first recorded lottery that offered tickets for sale. He used the funds to repair the city.
- A person is more likely to be killed by a vending machine (1 in 112 million) than to win the lottery.
- A person is more likely to become U.S. President (1 in 10 million) than to win the lottery.
- Stanford professor Joan R. Ginther won the lottery four times. The odds of this happening is about 1 in 18 septillion. Experts note that because she is a math genius, she may have cracked the lottery algorithm.
- In 2010, the weekly state lottery in Israel drew the same six numbers it did three weeks earlier. The chance of this happening is one in four trillion.
- About 70% of lottery winners not only spend all their winnings, but they lose the rest of their money within seven years.
- The most commonly drawn numbers in the lottery are 44, 38, and 40. (US)
- The most commonly chosen numbers in the lottery end in 7. (US)
- Men in the United States play the lottery every 18 days, while women play every 11 days.
People are more likely to do the following than win the lottery
- Die from an asteroid strike: 1 in 74,817,414
- Become a movie star: 1 in 1,505,000
- Get struck by lightning: 1 in 1,101,000
- Bowl a 300 game: 1 in 11,500