Recently, there have been a couple of big lottery winners in our Southern Maryland region. The following are excerpts from an article in today’s Baynet edition:
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| https://www.thebaynet.com/articles/1219/1000000-powerball-ticket-won-in-st-marys-county.html |
The winning Powerball ticket was sold at New Market’s Citgo at the Rt. 6 and 235 intersection in Charlotte Hall. They received a bonus for selling what is deemed a big ticket win. Retailers receive a 5.5% commission on all sales and then a 3% commission when winning tickets are cashed through their terminals. (click here.)
For “big ticket” winners retailer commissions are as follows:
Nice little hit for the retailer.
In addition to these benefits to the retailer, studies show that lottery players spend approximately an additional $10 in a business for every $5 they spend on the lottery (click here.) This maybe a chicken-egg thing because folks are usually in the business shopping anyway when they do decide to buy a Lotto ticket. However, when the Powerball or Megamillions jackpots get up around the $300 million mark retailers see a huge uptick in lotto sales. Foot traffic in their stores increases from folks who are coming in just to get in on the big ticket action.
All of which makes me seriously consider becoming a lottery agent. Thru the years I have been back and forth on the issue and have always deferred to the Buzzy approach. He, who was never reluctant to make some money, never wanted to pursue the Lotto because there are some hoops and hurdles to go through in order to become an agent. Plus, Buzzy was always very leery of anything having to do with oversight and scrutiny from regulatory agencies. He preferred staying below, er, make that way below the radar.
However, as Brad would testify, it’s all about “Making that easy money.”