A co-worker of mine gets lottery tickets out of dumpsters all the time. You wouldn't believe all the winners people throw away. He won 100,000 dollars on a second chance ticket!
my son said he had a friend in college who pulled out discarded GA lottery tickets from gas stations around the city and won on the average $200 - $300 per week. Lot of first time scratch off lottery buyers either don't read or can't read effectively the options on the ticket.
My ex-coworker used to have piles of them on his floor board of his car. I finally talked him into letting me have them for the second chance drawing and low and behold I found $90 worth of winners. I may or may have forgot to tell him. Some of them were not even scratched all the way
Happens all the time. I picked up probably 30 or 40 one time. many of them were still connected in chains of 10 or more. Co-workers thought I was crazy until i won the first 40 dollars. It's just statically improbable that you would have that many losers still connected. Always double check...
Most of the grocery stores near here have the fancy new video lottery ticket vending machines, i've found cash left toward a ticket on 3 occasions. I also fish any tickets I find out of the trash, there is a scanner right on the vending machine that checks if you are a winner. I have found a couple of 5 dollar winners that way.
I have never understood the logic on lottery tickets, the odds of winning are so small.