by Leslie Keck

Created on: January 14, 2009

I have been a long time addict of scratch tickets. You can get them anywhere now, gas stations, corner stores, lounges, even my neighbourhood Giant Tiger has brought them in to sell. When you walk into the one of the many stores that sell them, they are right at the counter under see through glass. You can't help but see them because you have to pay for what you went in to purchase.

Being an addict this makes it very hard for me not to buy them. It got worse for me when I had purchased a Bingo scratch ticket and won $1000. That was about 17 years ago and I haven't won anything big like that since then, but knowing it's possible has left me wanting to buy them more because the possibility is there for me to win big again.

I would go and spend $10.00 in the morning and if I didn't win I would go back in the afternoon and spend another $10.00 to try and win. Even if I won in the morning, I would go back to the store in the afternoon and buy more because I may win bigger. This had become a huge problem for me, my bills were slipping and I always tried to figure out how many more days it was until payday so I could make sure I had enough money to get me through in scratch tickets until I got more money. This didn't always work. I would find myself going to buy them when I was upset or mad and there went my budget.

About 6 months ago, I had decided enough was enough and told myself I was not buying anymore scratch tickets. I actually surprised myself and did really well, I had gone just over 3 months without spending even a dollar on any scratch tickets. I was very proud of myself, I always had money to buy things I wanted, or just have money sitting in my bank for a rainy day. It had been a long time since I had that.

After I had stopped for that period of time, I had gone into the store figuring I had been off them long enough, my addiction would be gone, I bought one $3.00 scratch ticket, brought it home and scratched it. That was the end of my scratch ticket free lifestyle. I was right back into buying them, sometimes more so than I had prior to stopping them.

My advice on the whole scratch ticket situation is, don't let yourself get addicted, if at all possible. You will end up paying more out then you will win. Yes it is possible to win the biggest prize available, but how much do you have to spend before that happens, and there's no guarantee you will ever end up purchasing the BIG winner.

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