Countries around the world run their own lotteries for people to get involved in. In the United Kingdom, there is The National Lottery. People buy tickets for this either in physical form from a shop or online via the official website.
In fact, in November of 2022, it came to light that ticket sales had reached an all-time high. Camelot, the lottery operator at the time, said that for the first six months of the 2022/23 financial year, sales reached £4,063.9 million. That broke the £4 billion mark for the first time in the company’s operation of the lottery.
It is evident that more people are playing The National Lottery today than ever before. That’s great, considering that this means more is being donated to good causes as a result. With more ticket sales, this left us with a question. Is it possible for someone to sell the lottery ticket they have bought? Can you sell both winning tickets and pre-draw tickets? And if it isn’t legal, does it still happen anyway?
Resale of Tickets Is Not Allowed
If you do ever buy a lottery ticket in the UK, then you cannot sell it on to someone else. You can buy a ticket and give it to someone as a gift. Yet when it comes to buying and reselling lottery tickets, this is a big no.
There is official wording on this from the UK Gambling Commission. It states:
“Tickets in society and local authority lotteries promoted under licence from the Commission must not be sold to anyone in a street”.
It then goes on to state where the sale of tickets can take place. This includes by a person in a static structure, from a shop premise or door to door. National Lottery ticket sales can only occur in licenced shops and on the lottery website. Anything outside of this is not considered as a legal activity. This means that if you try to resell your ticket, you are not adhering to the official rules.
If you are in possession of a winning lottery ticket, you cannot sell this, either. Some would ask why you would want to, of course. If you’re that desperate to give the money away, then you can do this. All you need to do is cash in the ticket and then distribute the funds how you like. You’ll need to keep in mind the limits in place for monetary gifts. Yet you cannot sell a winning lottery ticket to someone else.
It’s not only the UK that has such policies in place on resales, though. In the United States of America, it is pretty much the same. In 2018, a member of the Avvo legal team answered a customer query. That customer asked if they could sell their winning lottery ticket in the state of MA. They said that they were asking due to the fact that you have to publicise your identity if you win. Three lawyers answered, but the most in-depth answer said it was not possible. Sale of tickets in Massachusetts can only take place at approved vendors.
That same attorney did state that the player could establish a trust, though. Through it, the trust could collect the ticket. Its beneficiaries are not required to publicise their details if in possession of a win. The trustee would still have to do so, though. That can be anyone hired to specifically manage the trust. It went on to note an accountant or a lawyer as potentials for this.
Another question via the Quora website asked if it is legal to resell a US lottery ticket to non-US citizens. The answer that came back to that question was also negative. Further insight came about on it, too.
Any U.S. state has the right to gamble or create a lottery only within its own borders. When a game crosses state lines, then it becomes part of a federal jurisdiction. Some lotteries do sell to their own residents via the internet, but not across state lines. Tickets like those for the Powerball, for example, are only purchasable at state lottery terminals. Nobody can sell lottery tickets by mail or over the internet across state lines. This means that tickets for a U.S. lottery are not able to be re-sold to someone overseas.
Winners Sell Tickets to Escape Tax
It isn’t the case in all locations that you cannot sell a lottery ticket, though. The state of North Carolina doesn’t outlaw the act. Back in 2016, a report came up on certain people winning the lottery over and over again. The Charlotte News & Observer highlighted the surprising outcome. The number of North Carolina players claiming several wins soared. In 2015, 223 players claimed huge payouts from five or more scratch-off games. That stood out against the figure from 2009, which stood at 59. The report included information on a woman who won 21 scratch-off games in 2014. She also acquired wins from 17 the year after.
She isn’t the only North Carolina resident to experience that outcome, either. Of course, these winners are not doing anything wrong by purchasing lottery tickets. Hitting the jackpot relates to plain luck and how often you play in most cases. Yet some claimed that the players who have won many times over are cheating the system. Several instances of this took place in the past. This includes in 2012 when MIT students figured out how to win the MA lottery.
No evidence exists of foul play in North Carolina, though. At least, up to 2016, it hadn’t. An alternate explanation suggested that some of the multi-winners had taken another route. The explanation for this was that they had purchased winning scratch-off tickets from other players. They bought them for less than their true value and then cashed them in. If that is the truth, why would anyone want to sell a winning ticket?
It all comes down to the avoidance of taxes. In North Carolina (and various other states), any taxes come off a jackpot win. So, if a player owes back taxes or child support, it comes out of such a win. Back in 2013, one Powerball winner had $29,000 taken from their payout. That’s because he owed that amount in unpaid child support. Selling a winning lottery ticket in North Carolina is not a crime. A few other states have the same setup towards this.
Selling a winning lottery ticket for cash means that a player can receive a quick payout. At the same time, they don’t have to suffer the IRS targeting their winnings. It isn’t the case that accusations flew to specific people selling their tickets. It was just a possible theory thought up by some.
Seek Out Information Where You Live
The laws that are in place to govern the sale and resale of lottery tickets differ from place to place. While some state that resale is not possible at all, others give leeway for it. You would need to find out what the process is for resales in your area. For the most part, countries with licensed lotteries wouldn’t allow resales of tickets. Especially if a ticketholder was the one attempting to do it.
South Dakota legislature, for example, falls in line with no resales from person to person. It suggests that only lottery retailers may sell or resell lottery tickets. Any person violating this section of the law is guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanour.
We highlighted earlier that you can give a lottery ticket as a gift to someone else, though. This is a different situation, because you’re not exchanging money for the ticket. In fact, the UK National Lottery has highlighted tickets as being an ideal gift before. The law denotes that the person you are passing the tickets to has to be over the legal age. After all, they also have to claim the payout if it’s a winning ticket. Someone underage cannot claim a lottery win, even if they have received a ticket as a gift.
Of course, there also comes a certain sort of situation with gifting lottery tickets. Suppose you buy someone a ticket and they win over £1 million from it. We’d all like to think of ourselves as being completely rational. In this situation, would you not try to claim some of the money for yourself? The same could be the case if you sell a pre-draw ticket to someone and it’s a winner. If you went through the resale process and sold the ticket on to someone for £1, what then? They win a £2 million jackpot and what do you have to show for it?
Giving National Lottery tickets to others as gifts is a great idea. Yet only on the understanding that once you have handed the ticket over, it is theirs. Any winnings they derive from it belong to them and only them. If they opt not to give you any of those winnings, that is up to them. A gift, at the end of the day, is a gift. This is also something important to consider if you do choose to resell a ticket. While this isn’t an official option to proceed with, it’s likely that it has happened in the past.
The best thing that you can do if you’re intending to sell a ticket is check the law in your country. The last thing you want to do is go through a resale, get caught for it and face criminal charges. Lottery tickets are so cheap to buy that there isn’t likely to be anyone chomping at the bit to get them from you. After all, they could buy one from an official retailer themselves.
If someone is trying to sell you a winning ticket, then there must be some sort of catch. Either they are trying to evade paying taxes, as noted earlier, or something else is awry. Again, it’s better to not get caught up in purchasing tickets from a random person. Always go via the direct retailer channels, either online or in a physical shop.