$15 Million Lottery Ticket Sold in Town with the Perfect Name
What's in a name? Apparently a lot, at least when it comes to winning a big lottery prize. $15.1 million big.
On Wednesday, January 4, one ticket matched all six Megabucks numbers and claimed the giant jackpot from the Wisconsin Lottery. The winning ticket was purchased at Wayne's Food Plus a grocery store in the small northwest Wisconsin town of... wait for it... Luck. You can't make this stuff up.
Luck, Wisconsin is home to less than 1,200 residents and, as you can imagine, the fact that someone purchased the jackpot-winning ticket in town was a BIG deal.
It's crazy how a store that sells a winning ticket finds out about it, at least in this case. Store manager Paul Wondra told CBS Minnesota, "Thursday morning, when I come in and run my morning reports and get your lottery report--it shows 'Congrats to Wayne's Foods in Luck, WI, for selling a 15-million megabucks ticket'... I was looking for my ticket, but I didn't have one." Let's assume he was in at about 5 a.m. and beat a phone call from the Wisconsin Lottery.
Wayne's Foods Plus gets $100,000 for selling the winning ticket, the largest Megabucks jackpot since 2015. Megabucks is a Wisconsin-only lotto game with tickets that are two plays for $1.
So who purchased the winning ticket? According to the Wisconsin Lottery website, Mark C. won the prize. He claimed his prize on Monday, January 9. Mark took the cash option which paid him $9,946,960. I have no idea how old Mark is but if he were to live 50 years that total is like a $199,000 paycheck every year for five decades. He'll just deal with it all at once.
As one man interviewed in the store said, "Well, get lucky in luck, can't ya." Mark C. sure did.