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Lottery Lunch Break Yields $50,000 Win for Kansas Player

Ever buy a scratch ticket on your lunch break?

I know millions of people do.

One of them recently turned a coffee break into a $50,000 windfall.

Bryan “Scott” Wells was on his lunch break when he stopped at a convenience store to pick up a cup of coffee. He said the store had just put a brand new pack of “$10 Midwest Millions” tickets into the dispenser, and he decided to buy a couple.

“It’s just fun. There’s a chance to win something big, and I did,” Wells said.

Did he ever!

Wells scratched his tickets at the store, uncovering a $25 prize on one of his Midwest Millions tickets, and a $50,000 top prize on the other!

“The manager of the store came over, and I said to him, ‘Dude, look what I just got!’” said the excited winner.

Wells told Lottery officials he plays instant tickets quite often, and almost always buys $10 and $20 tickets because of their high prizes and favorable odds. The Midwest Millions game has overall odds of 1 in 2.84.

“The savviest of our players definitely pay attention to the odds,” said Kansas Lottery Director Ed Van Petten. “And Midwest Millions has some of the best.”

Wells, 34 and single, purchased his $50,000 ticket in Overland Park, Kansas. He plans to pay off his vehicle and credit cards and help a friend with his prize money.

Midwest Millions is a game developed jointly by the Kansas and Iowa lotteries. Players with non-winning Midwest Millions tickets still have a chance to win by entering their non-winning tickets into the second of two drawings to be held on April 17.

At the first drawing on Jan. 9, Sandra Vines of Wichita won a grand prize of $500,000 cash. Five other players each won $10,000 cash. The April 17 drawing will offer the same prizes.

Next time I’m in Kansas, I’m buying one of those tickets.

GAMES WE PLAY:

There was no big winner in last night’s Powerball game, so the jackpot rolls over to $42 million on Saturday.

The winning Jan. 28 numbers were 5,10,18,23,32 and the Power ball was 4. The Power Play multiplier was 4.

7 tickets picked the first five numbers, but not the Powerball. One of the seven Power Played their bet and won an automatic $1 million. The other six won $200,000 each.

Those tickets were bought in Arizona, Colorado, Florida (2 tickets, one of which was worth $1 million), Missouri, Pensylvania (2 tickets)

34 tickets picked four of the first five numbers and the Power ball. Each of those tickets is worth $10,000. 7 tickets picked four of the first five numbers and the Power ball and they Power Played their bets. Those 7 tickets are each worth $40,000.

Overall, at all levels, there were 506,235 winners.

Congratulations, everyone.

The Friday night Mega Millions jackpot is $40 million.
The Friday night Euro Millions jackpot is 28 million euros.

Good luck, players.

And don’t forget, my “beginner’s guide” to American lotteries is released next week and is available at Barnes and Noble and amazon. Official title is Lottery, A Guide to American Lotteries. It’s filled with funny stories about winners, strategies, how to form a pool, scam alerts, how lotteries have been portrayed in the movies and a bunch of other cool stuff.

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