With Megamillions and Powerball being at a high number a few weeks ago, an estimated 500 or more lottery ticket plays were sold at the Rowley Market Basket alone. Triton Voice interviewed a few high school students as well as conducted an experiment in the Rowley Market Basket. We found that gambling may not be as popular as people may think.

On Friday February 9, the sales of lottery tickets were observed, as well as how many scratch tickets and lottery games were sold. The results are as follows:

Over a 6 hour period from 3pm to 9pm (closing time), at the Rowley Market Basket approximately 24 people came over to the customer service booth and bought a game such as Megamillions, which is played on Fridays, or other games that are lottery-based. Additionally approximately 17 people asked for their scratch tickets to be cashed or recieved scratch tickets from the machine that is right out in front of the courtesy booth.

For the whole day, from 7am to 9pm, $509.50 worth of tickets were sold from the lottery machine that administers the quick picks. It was fascinating to myself, because there are no high paying games right now, the number of people was significantly lower, and the store had a slow night for sales in general, so that could explain the relatively low concentration of people. It is important to note that although Rowley Market Basket had this many people tonight gambling, their are other local places that a higher concentration of people might attend. When the games are big, and the pay is in the hundreds of millions, everyone wants to play it seems,  and I can sell over 150 tickets per hour. When the pay is extremely high, I will generally see younger people gambling, and people who are not ‘regular’. I know this because often they will ask me what the game is or not even know the pieces of the tickets.

Gambling is a huge problem in the United States, and one that appeals to an older demographic, as seen in the experiment. Senior Hannah Burd states “I don’t play regularly, but occasionally I will buy a couple.”

After constructing this experiment, it was clear to Triton Voice that there is a false assumption that most of the gambling is done by high school students. Most high school students don’t gamble because we are taught from a young age that gambling is a risky investment and that it is not a good habit to have. I thought that older people often occupy their time with gambling in efforts to add some excitement into their lives.

Another thought that I had after gathering data from the experiment, is that older people have developed more of a habit throughout their life, and younger people tend to not have as much of a habit because they are only able to gamble once they are over 18. It is not as popular in high school as people might think. Senior Marlee Smith said “I don’t play scratch tickets because I dont think Ill win, I have the worst luck, and it isn’t worth it to me.” It is interesting because often people think that younger people are more immature and ignorant with their money, but in fact, fewer younger people gamble because they have no interest.

Younger people need to save up for college, and there are better ways of making money than simply attempting to win some money through gambling. This idea was contradicted by the statistic of “About 40 percent of people with a gambling problem started gambling before the age of 17”(gamblingcourt.org). The percentage of students who gamble at Triton is much lower than that of the national level. Karen Frazier a writer for addiction.lovetoknow.com, said that “ the certain risk factors that are associated with teens who gamble are; being male, living in a single parent household, having a below-median income, early initiation, playing sports, experiencing problems at home, and having low-self esteem.”

Observations made apparent that gambling is not as big of a habit in this area as it is in bigger towns. The demographic of people who gamble the most are older men. That being said, there are plenty of women who gamble, but most of the time it is men. Another trend that I noticed, is that not many young people buy the lottery tickets and more of the younger demographic buys scratch tickets. Observations indicate that this is because the younger generation needs instant gratification, and needs to know if they won right away, and don’t have the patience to wait and see the drawing of the game at night. Older people generally have more patience, and are less custom to instant gratification and that is why they play more of the lottery tickets than younger people. It is also important to note that I have not for as long as I can remember had to card for lottery.

The rule for carding at the Rowley Market Basket is if the person looks under the age of 25 you should ID them. That being it has never occured in my two years of working in customer service, had someone ask me for a lottery ticket who don’t look under 25, so this proves further that not many teenagers are gambling. In addition to this I noticed that more middle-aged women gamble than men.

It is a good thing that the younger demographic of people are not gambling as much. When your finances are not steady and completely stable, it is important that you attempt to not make many risky investments.