rgewrgherg

Why don't they make them pay up front for the tickets at a wholesale rate. If they can't buy them than they don't get them.

Any small store owner would go bankrupt in the first few months if they had to buy all there products upfront. Most suppliers work on a sliding scale payment option for convenience store this gives the wholesaler more room to say what and how much of there products you can carry...

If each shop owner had to buy everything upfront that they would sell the operating cost would be insane...

Hire a collection agency to go after them. On sales of 4b, its not that bad. Every business has deadbeat vendors - that's why there is a "bad accounts" column for bookkeepers. The state should be grateful that they don't have tackle shops for vendors.

I new a guy in Whitman years ago who was thousands in debt to them before the lottery realized they wouldn't be able to collect. Owner had no idea his wife was scraching tickets she wasn't paying for until it was to late. By the time he found out, he also found out she was very ill and dying and did nothing to stop her. Think about going into a store and buying tickets off a book when the owner of the store or a clerk watches how many go out and no winner and then buys or takes the next five himself/herself and scratches a winner. You are actually playing against two entities effectively doubling your odds of winning.

Betting (no pun intended:rotf2:) that most of that "lost" money can be found in many of the folks pockets who work for the lottery!

Money is not lost until it can't be recovered.
I worked for a company that had a lot of unpaid bills. They hired this big dude with a Mercedes - a professional bill collector. I don't know how he did it, but he got most of the deadbeats to pay up - his fee was 25%.