One longtime lottery player saw his holiday wishes come true on Monday, winning a whopping
$508,953.
The winning Powerball ticket was sold this week by the Kwik Serv gas station at 8480 Lander Ave. in Hilmar. The ticket successfully matched five winning numbers from the lottery’s Dec. 12 drawing, only missing out on the Power number.
The winning numbers were 16, 31, 50, 55 and 61 with the missing Powerball being 9.
The customer purchased the ticket the same day as Monday’s drawing. According to cashier Helena, he is a loyal customer of the Kwik Serv location.
“He’s a regular customer and comes here all the time. He plays faithfully every week,” she said. “He came in the next day and kept asking, ‘Is this real? Is this real? Can you guys check it? It’s a half a million dollars?’ So, he’s obviously really excited.”
And it won’t just be the Kwik Serv customer walking away with heavier pockets. According to the California Lottery, retailers who sell winning tickets receive 0.5% percent of the total winnings.
According to Helena, the last big Powerball winner was at Kwik Serv was last year, but that these latest winnings simply don’t compare to what they have witnessed this week.
“Last year we had a big winner but was only like $21,000. It wasn’t big like this one. This one is the biggest that we’ve had here in years, probably like eight years ago and that was $76,000,” she said. “Everybody is buzzing about it. We sell tickets every day anyway because we’re a high-volume seller, but everybody is wanting to play the Powerball and hit the Powerball.”
Though the Hilmar customer matched five numbers and has already claimed the prize, the $124 million jackpot ticket with the Powerball number was never hit, which pushed Wednesday’s grand prize to $134 million. But like on Monday, there was also no grand prize winner, thus making today’s jackpot worth $149 million.
The Powerball draws every Monday, Wednesday and Saturday night at 7:59 p.m. Drawings can be viewed live on YouTube through the official Powerball channel, @Powerball39. All of the latest drawing results can also be found online at www.calottery.com/draw-games/powerball.
“I hope this gives people some more reasons to come on over and visit our store,” Helena said. “Although we don’t always have winners of this magnitude, we are always having $100, $1,000 and some $10,000 and $25,000 winners. We’re just a lucky retailer.”
