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$76 million lottery ticket sold in Alvin
Published October 23, 2009
ALVIN — Tucked away in the back of the Alvin H-E-B store with the cigarettes, bags of ice and bottled water sits a machine that spit out a lot of clams for one of its users.
A customer who picked up a Texas Lottery ticket at the booth this week won the $76 million jackpot in Wednesday night’s Lotto Texas drawing.
The winner has not come forward, but when he or she does, he or she won’t get as much money as advertised.
Texas Lottery Commission spokesman Robert Heith said the winning ticketholder chose to receive the prize in a single payment of $48.87 million, as opposed to the $76 million he or she would receive if the prize was distributed over the next 25 years.
“They make that decision when they buy the ticket,” he said.
An attorney saying he represents the jackpot winner contacted the commission Thursday, Heith said.
The attorney did not provide the winner’s name.
“It’s a first step of the process,” he said. The winner has 180 days to come forward and collect, Heith said.
While lottery officials work out details with the winner, H-E-B managers said it might be time to move the machine to a more prominent spot in the store.
“We were just saying yesterday we needed to promote it more,” said Christina Sauer, manager of the grocery chain’s Alvin store.
Customers and employees chattered about the winning ticket throughout the day Thursday as television camera crews and reporters bustled around them. Many H-E-B customers were surprised to hear about the winning ticket, especially those who buy tickets there.
Alvin retiree Helen Scott said she uses money from her Social Security check to buy one lottery ticket every day. She’s never won though.
“I feel like now I’ve just wasted my money,” she said laughing.
She only buys one ticket a day because, “I’m broke all of the time.”
Holding his groceries, Charles Price said he doesn’t know how he’d spend such a windfall, but he liked the idea of being rich.
“That’d be pretty nice, especially in bad times,” he said.
Heith said a customer at the Alvin store was the only player to match the winning Lotto Texas numbers — 9-20-27-42-51-53.
Customer Ruben Guerrero said he couldn’t blame the winner for wanting to come forward quietly.
“It could be me,” he said. The ticket, “could be in my wallet, but you would never know.”
The ticket is the largest Lotto Texas jackpot win on a single ticket since a $145 million ticket in 2004, lottery commission officials said.
“We haven’t had a larger jackpot since then,” Heith said.
The Alvin H-E-B doesn’t sell a lot of lottery tickets, and the commission reported that only $17 worth of tickets were purchased there Wednesday, Sauer said. The lottery commission does not know precisely when the person bought the ticket at the store, Heith said.
H-E-B will receive $500,000 for selling the winning ticket, Heith said.
As customers worked their way past the cash registers Thursday, Sauer tied a few balloons on to the winning machine.
“I think we need more than just two measly balloons for $76 million,” she said.
The only unclaimed prize the commission has for now is an $11 million Lotto Texas jackpot announced in May. That winning ticket was purchased in Burleson.
John Tompkins is senior reporter for The Facts. Contact him at 979-849-8581.
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