I stood behind an elderly lady at my local grocery store customer service counter while she bought her weekly supply of lottery tickets. I don't play the lottery and had no conception of what all the terms meant. (Box this. Split that. 50/50 something else.) It took a full 10 minutes as she checked the couple of dozen tickets one at a time.
It was frustrating to many in line and I can't imagine it made all that much money for Giant Eagle since the face values of the tickets wound up being a mere $25.
But the state of Pennsylvania is happy.
My sister once worked at such a store to pick up some extra cash and she confirmed that this was true at her store.
Yeah, that's always befuddled me, too. Why do people have to scratch off their tickets, etc, when there is a LINE. Buy the damn tickets and get the hell outta my way!
The store owner himself is gambling through his customers. Most states give the convenience store owner a cut (1%) in his customer's winnings.
In Massachusetts, vendors earn an average of $27,027 per year on lottery sales.
I hear you. I had to wait in line for roughly ten minutes trying to pay for $10 in gas recently because some lottery-obsessed 'old bat' kept buying and scratching; completely oblivious to the ten people in line behind her.