Should you pay for your lottery tickets by cash or credit card? 5 unusual reasons revealed
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A clerk sells lottery tickets at a Stop & Shop in New Jersey, USA. Soon many supermarkets will be selling tickets straight from the checkout. Photo: Times Union
More and more lotto outlets are allowing players to pay by credit card for their tickets. Some supermarkets now have lottery kiosks on the counter so you can buy tickets with your groceries.
But a lot of people still prefer to pay cash. Is this a good idea? Should you pay by card or cash when you buy your tickets?
There are several reasons why you should think twice about using cash for your purchases. Here are 5 reasons why cards are better:
#1. Cash is inconvenient.
On average, researchers found, Americans waste 28 minutes a month travelling to an ATM. That's 5.6 hours a year just to pick up cash.
#2. Cash is dirty
Researchers from Wright Patterson Medical Center recently asked 68 shoppers at a grocery store to swap out dollar bills they were holding with clean ones. They got the following results:
87% were contaminated with bacteria that could cause an infection in anyone with a compromised immune system.
7 per cent had bacteria that could cause an infection in perfectly healthy people.
Only 6% were completely clean.
#3. Cash is dangerous
The more cash you carry, the greater the risk of losing or misplacing it. And robberies were more concentrated around places that did most of their business in cash.
#4 You can't order stuff online with cash
If you love inconvenience, cash is your guy. Plus it is much easier to keep track of purchases by paying with credit cards, as you don't have to manage a bunch of paper receipts.
#5 You can't build up a credit score with cash
Credit cards can get you into debt. But they're also basically the only way you'll ever be able to get a loan in the first place. This is perhaps the most immediate benefit.
