Spending your money on the lottery each week is quietly draining your savings. It's time to consider an alternative to a lottery addiction.
In the United States, $72,749,684,000.00 is spent on lottery tickets annually. That's a lot of guacamole. Americans over the age of 18 spend approximately $286.96 each on their lottery addiction every year. That is money not spent on essentials or savings for retirement. The odds of winning the lottery are fantastically low, so hard working Americans are spending money on the illusion that they might win something of value. Lottery prizes can amount to enormous sums, but the vast majority of winning tickets are for amounts less than $10.00. If you want the opportunity to play a game of chance that is likely to yield a $10.00 prize, there is a more practical alternative to the lottery.
Spending As A Percent Of Income
State Lottery Spending Per Capita
In terms of how much Americans spend as a percentage of their income some trends emerge. Clearly there is a tendency for states in the eastern portion of the United States to spend a greater portion of their income on lottery tickets. Leading that charge is West Virginia.
West Virginians spend 2.02% of their income, or $767.28 per year on lottery tickets. The state whose workers spend the most per year on lottery tickets is Massachusetts, where each citizen over the age of 18 spends approximately $978.18 on average per year. The reason Massachusetts does not lead the nation on a percentage basis is due to the higher wages earned by workers in Massachusetts than those in West Virginia.
On the other end of the spectrum is North Dakota, whose citizens spend 0.57% of their income on lottery tickets each year. North Dakota also leads the nation in terms of least amount of money spent at $57.57 per year.
Devoting 0.57% of your income to nothing more than the illusion of winning the lottery is a foolish choice. Increasing that allocation to 2.02% is just unbelievable. At that rate of spending, West Virginians likely place lottery spending at a higher priority than retirement, education or emergency savings.
The Lottery Alternative
At its core, the inspiration for lottery purchases is the desire to win a liberating amount of money for a comparatively minimal price. With odds of winning virtually at 0, participants are typically left with a consolation prize of $10.00 or less as the winning amount on the rare occasions when they win at all. That minor win is enough of a hook to keep lottery participants coming back.
A great alternative to a lottery addiction is an incredibly simple and accessible scheme: quarter rolls. Ok, stay with me here.
Your local bank has rolls of quarters for a variety of use cases. Laundry machines, car washes, vending machines...many places require quarters in order to perform services or dispense products. Each of the rolls of quarters issued by a bank will contain $10.00 in quarters which is - of course - legitimate currency. A $10.00 quarter roll will never be worth less than $10.00.
However, within that roll of quarters, there may be some interesting surprises. If you happen to locate a quarter minted before 1964, that quarter will contain actual silver - 90% of its composition, to be precise. Depending on the market price for silver, that coin could be worth $7.00 or more based on its silver value alone. In 1964 alone, 1,264,526,113 silver quarters were minted, so that particular vintage is much more likely to appear in your quarter roll than any other silver-era year.
At the other end of the mintage spectrum is the 1932 silver quarter. In that year, only 844,800 silver quarters were minted. If you locate a quarter from 1932 in your quarter roll, not only will you benefit from the silver value, but also its numismatic value, which is the value of a coin beyond that of its base metal or fiat value. Scarcity is a major contributor to increasing numismatic value, so finding a more rare quarter in your quarter roll can significantly increase its open market value. Should you be so lucky as to find a 1932 quarter in your coin roll, your jackpot may be as much as $1,850.00 or even more depending on the amount of wear and tear on the coin.
You may also find unusual error coins or specific quarters that have an unusually limited mintage. A high grade 2004 Wisconsin Statehood coin with a design error can fetch upward of $800.00 at auction. Even a very recent 2013 Mount Rushmore Parks quarter can command a price of $28.00. The number of quarters with value in excess of $0.25 is very high, and so a great place to begin finding out more about the various quarters in your coin roll and their respective values is to perform a search directly on eBay. By locating coins with a value that exceeds the face value of the coin, you might be inspired to create an auction to claim your winnings.
Summary
If you are like many Americans, you play the lottery enough that you might be slightly addicted. Understanding the rationale as to why you play the lottery might help you locate more appropriate alternatives that can yield real results without breaking the bank. By using quarter rolls from the bank you can channel your lottery enthusiasm into a pursuit far more likely to yield a reward. And best of all, when it comes to coins rolls, there are no losing tickets. In the worst case scenario, $10.00 played on a coin roll will always be worth $10.00!
Do you spend more than the average person in your state on lottery tickets each year? Do you think that is a problem? Do you already go to your local bank to explore the quarter rolls? What unique vintages of coins have you found?