Why would they not know how many tickets have been given out? That is the point. They are likely putting a finite number of tickets out.
That is exactly my point. If each hyvee store cannot be in contact with each other to know the total number of tickets disbursed then it stands to reason that each store is going to have a certain number of tickets given to them. So what happens when a store runs out of ticktets? do they say "tough ****" go to another store.
I dont know maybe it is just me but it seems like it would be an easy job for a university, that probably gives out Ph Ds in computer science (I know they give out Masters in CS because my son in law got one there), to build a simple web form on the ticket site where you enter your name and address and get a printer friendly page to print off your ticket. And the website would actually be able to keep track of how many tickets have been given out. amazing.
But since I am a tech person with science background and do software development I would look for a simple single source point solution.