Here’s an interesting question we just got in an email – and the answer we sent in reply. The man raises a really good point, it’s just not something we can accurately make available right now. But it’s something we’ll keep working on!
A man named Alex emailed us with this question: “Are there any publicly available records of which scratch tickets are currently stocked by retailers? I am an occasional instant game player who will pick up a few tickets when I pass through Iowa. I enjoy playing the $3 Jumble game, but have not seen many in stores recently. Your website indicates there are several top prizes remaining for this game, so I am curious as to where these tickets are currently being sold.”
Now there’s a guy who likes to be thorough in his planning! And we appreciate that.
If you’ve done your homework like Alex, you already know there’s a page on our website where you can look up the retailers in a particular area that sell lottery tickets. You can search for them by zip code or city. But we don’t have the ability in real time to list the games available at a particular location, and we think anything less would likely just cause more headaches than good, so we haven’t gone there.
There are identifying numbers on each lottery ticket that tell us, for example, when that ticket has been delivered to a particular location, when it was sold and when it was cashed. But we can’t see in real time when that location may have run out of tickets in that game, or if that store has decided to delay adding a particular game to its mix, which is a business decision it certainly can make.
If there’s a game you’re looking for like Alex was, we can always check with individual retail locations to see if they’ve got it available. We were able to pinpoint some locations for Alex that had the Jumble scratch game in the area he was visiting, so now he’ll be able to find them.
Great question, Alex, and good luck with your Iowa tickets!
Comments