Another option is buying tickets online. Many states offer that and eliminates much of the issues with physical tickets that are essentially bearer documents.

In Pennsylvania, to buy on-line lottery, one needs to register an account and all purchases are in the name of the account holder. Much better and safer than physical tickets.

Seems eventually, lotteries will more aggressively tout safety as another reason to buy big jackpot games on-line. Plus, lotteries benefit too by not having to pay out sales commissions to retailers.

Hopefully the CA Lottery handles this promptly, because there are some lottery players who avoid buying Powerball / Mega Million tickets when jackpots get unusually high for just this reason.