n. A person who collects new and used lottery tickets.
1999
When Aaron Fout estimated that he had a million used lottery tickets in his basement, I was a little skeptical. Until I saw his basement. In box after box after box the Grove City grandfather stores something other people throw away: used scratch-off lottery tickets. He has them from all 37 lottery states and the District of Columbia. Fout is a lotologist, as those who share this hobby call themselves.
1998 (earliest)
Every time the state of Texas inaugurates a new scratch-off lottery game, Dr. Alfred Ricks goes out and buys 200 or 300 tickets.
But he's never scratched the paint off one of them to see if he's won a prize.
Not one.
"My brother tells me that I've probably passed up a million-dollar winner on one of my tickets," the 48-year-old physician from West Columbia said recently. "But I'm still not tempted to scratch it off. I tell everybody I know that every ticket I buy is a winner." Ricks is a lotologist, one of a growing number of people who collect, study and admire lottery tickets — not for the prizes they promise, but for their art and value as collectors' items.
But he's never scratched the paint off one of them to see if he's won a prize.
Not one.
"My brother tells me that I've probably passed up a million-dollar winner on one of my tickets," the 48-year-old physician from West Columbia said recently. "But I'm still not tempted to scratch it off. I tell everybody I know that every ticket I buy is a winner." Ricks is a lotologist, one of a growing number of people who collect, study and admire lottery tickets — not for the prizes they promise, but for their art and value as collectors' items.