“The real problem is this: You’ve got people that have the gene to be addicted, compulsive gamblers, and they would never gamble on anything that was illegal,” Wexler said. He said that many who spend excessively on lottery tickets don’t consider that act to be a form of gambling. Wexler said he’s more concerned about the emergence of state-sponsored gambling, first through lottery drawings and instant games and recently with the spread of legalized sports betting. Because if you're addicted, my head tells me I would rather, as a gambler, buy 50 $1 tickets than one $50 ticket.” “So $50 is not something that changes the gambling addiction. “There were people that would go in and buy $100, $200 a day in tickets, even on $1 tickets,” Wexler said. He said he was stealing to support his gambling habit while earning only $60 a week. While living in New York in the 1960s, Wexler said, he spent $50 to $100 a day on lottery tickets, in addition to money he spent in daily trips to a horse racing track.

“Some people try because they buy the small ones and they win $100 or something and they just want to try it at least one time to see how it is.” “Some people like it, and some people look at it like, ‘Oh, the risk of $50 - I might not get it back,'” Chokshi said. Hardy Chokshi, owner of Super Stop Food Store on Lincoln Avenue, said he sometimes sells as many as 10 or 15 of the highest-priced tickets on Fridays, the day many workers receive paychecks.

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Lawmakers have used lottery money for such budget areas as college scholarships, building programs and a school recognition program, as well as for day-to-day operations rather than instructional programs, as Treasure Coast Newspapers reported in a 2017 investigation. A study from the 2017-2018 fiscal year found that the amount of money from lottery ticket sales had declined from its original 39% to 26%, the Florida Education Association reported. The amount of money transferred to the Educational Enhancement Trust Fund has not come close to matching the growth in lottery revenue, which has averaged more than 10% a year. But the state Legislature has revised the funding formula over the years, using lottery money as a substitute for education funds moved to other areas of the budget. The state promotes the Florida Lottery as a boon to education, reporting that revenues have produced more than $41 billion in funding for schools and students.

(The Florida Lottery also offers a second-chance drawing for non-winning tickets with prizes of up to $25,000.) The state promotes the Florida Lottery as a boon to education That means that, statistically speaking, more than three of every four tickets sold are losers. The state lists the overall odds of collecting a payout of any amount on the $50 ticket at one in 4.5.

Florida lottery scratch offs