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The strange places lottery winners keep their tickets

Mon 07 Nov 2016, By Patty Reynolds
The strange places lottery winners keep their tickets

Part of the problem with buying physical lottery tickets is finding a safe place to keep them. A recent Irish EuroMillions winner discovered a ticket worth €500 000 after emptying out her handbag. That may not seem so unusual to you, but this was the last place she’d thought to look for it.

And last year another Irish EuroMillions winner found her winning lottery ticket in the pantry. Coincidentally, it was also worth €500 000.

Perhaps that’s the key to winning? You need to keep your tickets in an unusual place to improve your odds? It’s worth a shot. But in the meantime, think about the places where you keep your lottery tickets.

Most people simply stuff them in a draw or the glove compartment of their car. Winning tickets are routinely discovered weeks or months later when someone decides to do some spring cleaning. The problem with that is that you could easily miss the deadline for claiming for your prize. So if you play US lottery games such as the Powerball and Mega Millions you might want to rethink what you do with your tickets once you get home from buying them from the corner shop.

For starters, you’ll want to pick a specific drawer or cupboard and get into the habit of keeping all your lottery tickets in the same place. That way you won’t have to turn the house upside down when the lottery results are published. As an extra precaution, you could keep them in a Ziploc bag to prevent them from getting damaged in any way. If you have the picked with the winning lotto numbers, you won’t want to hand over a ticket that looks as if it’s been in the garbage.

As important as it is to take good care of your lottery tickets, it’s even more important to safeguard them once you’ve discovered that you’re holding on to a winner. You’d be amazed to find out where winners keep their tickets until they can claim there prize. From socks and underwear to cookie tins, some winners have even gone so far as the tape the winning ticket to their chest.

That’s not quite the right way to handle things. If you’ve won the US Powerball, for example, the first thing you need to do is sign your ticket. You could even put your name and address on the ticket if your handwriting is small enough. That way, if your ticket does go missing, nobody else can claim your prize. And instead of keeping it about your person, you’ll want to lock it away in a fire-proof strong box, or your safety deposit box at the bank. Until you’re ready to claim your winnings, you need to take extra care with your winning lottery ticket.

But the ultimate solution is to buy lottery tickets online instead. There are many benefits to playing the American lottery online. Aside from the fact that it’s the most convenient way to get your lottery tickets, it eliminates all the hassle of finding a good place to keep your physical tickets. Once you’ve placed your order, the online lottery ticket agent will purchase official, physical lottery tickets on your behalf. They’ll also keep the tickets in a secure location until the draw has taken place.

Once the lottery results are in, they’ll check all the tickets and send you an email with all the details. If you’ve won a small prize, you won’t need your physical lottery ticket to claim it. The lottery agent will claim your prize on your behalf and deposit the money into your account with them. In the case of larger prizes, they’ll help you make all the arrangements to collect your prize in person. And that means they’ll keep your lottery ticket perfectly safe until you’re ready to collect your check.

You can buy EuroMillions online too, and try your luck on lots of other exciting international lotteries. You never know when you could get lucky, and it’s always fun to try something new and different. It’s perfectly possible for someone to become the biggest EuroMillions winners without flying all the way to Europe to buy a ticket. There are no rules that forbid foreign players from buying US lottery tickets online either. So if you really want to play the Powerball, all you need is an internet connection.

In fact, you’ll discover that there are many exciting lottos you can play online. And provided that you buy your tickets from an authorised online lottery ticket dealer, you have nothing to worry about. As long as the agent provides you with scanned copies of the tickets, you can rest assured that everything is above board.

So forget about stashing your precious lottery tickets in the bottom of your handbag or in your sock drawer. Embrace the modern age and buy lottery tickets online instead. Not only will you eliminate the risk of losing a winning ticket, but you’ll never miss out on a prize, big or small.