Missouri – Bartender Taylor Russey recently received a tip from a customer that will not be soon forgotten: a Powerball ticket worth $50,000.
The O’Fallon resident said it was not at all unusual for this particular customer to gift Draw Games tickets to others.
“One of the regulars will buy the rest of the regulars in the bar Lottery tickets every now and then, especially when it’s high,” Russey said. “And he did that on Saturday – he bought all of us Lottery tickets.”
The following day, the establishment’s Lottery terminal alerted staff that the location had sold a $50,000 winner for the previous night’s drawing. “I was like, ‘Guys, who won all this money and didn’t tell anybody?’” Russey recalled.
Upon remembering the gift from the customer the night before, Russey scanned her ticket at the terminal and was informed that she must claim her prize at a Lottery office, because her ticket was the one worth $50,000.
Her ticket’s numbers matched four of the five white-ball numbers drawn on Oct. 19, plus the Powerball. The winning numbers for the drawing were 14, 27, 29, 59, 65, and the Powerball was 12. The ticket was purchased at Bleacher’s Bar, 454 Highway P, in O’Fallon.
Russey’s ticket is the 40th $50,000 winner sold in Missouri and the second sold in O’Fallon in 2019.
In the most recent fiscal year, players in St. Charles County won more than $47.9 million in Missouri Lottery prizes. Retailers in the county received more than $4.9 million in commissions and bonuses, and an additional $9.2 million went to educational programs in the county. For a detailed list of programs that benefitted, visit MOLottery.com.