Lottery ticket sales brisk first day
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“It’s been pretty wild so far,” Raceway Market owner Randy Marsh said yesterday. “I was expecting it to be busy, but this, I can’t believe it. It’s beyond my expectations.”
Marsh said he began selling the scratch-off tickets at 5 a.m. yesterday and by 6 a.m. had already sold 1,000 tickets. Shortly before noon he had sold nearly 3,000 tickets, a good number of which included more than a few big winners.
“We’ve had several $100 winners and about five $50 winners. People have been lined up six deep on three registers all day. Sometime I think it will slow down, but then I’ll have 25 waiting up front. It’s been great for business,” he said.
Scot market manager Mary Wilhoite said the morning hours were feverish at her store as well, with customers spending between $1 and $10 per purchase on tickets. The most popular lottery ticket yesterday morning, she said, was Lucky 7’s, a $1 game which offers 1:4 odds of winning and in which a contestant can win up to $7,000.
While some area stores waited to start selling lottery tickets until early or mid-morning yesterday, others, like Mapco Express, began selling them at the earliest possible time they could, 12:01 a.m.
“We had them lined up, probably 20 or 30 of them waiting to buy at midnight. They were coming in with lists and buying 10 of this ticket and 10 of that one,” said Mapco clerk Kathy Smartt. “It’s not as bad as I thought it would be. They weren’t beating down the doors or anything, but it was busy.”
Smartt and Mapco manager Scott Phipps said the rush continued throughout the morning with people buying tickets, collecting their winnings and buying more tickets.
“Business is booming,” said Phipps, “and most people who are buying tickets are buying other stuff too. I imagine it will stay pretty hectic for the rest of the week.”
While business was booming at stores with lottery tickets, it was a quiet day at Village, which is still waiting for its lottery equipment to arrive.
“It’s supposed to arrive in the next day or two,” said Village owner Terry Boyd. “But they have been saying that for the last two weeks.”
Boyd was plenty busy at his other store, Korner Market, which had plenty of tickets yesterday and plenty of customers. At times, there were 15 to 20 people waiting in line to buy lottery tickets.
“People have been winning like crazy,” said Korner Market employee Patty Boyd. “There have been $27 winners, $24 winners and lots of $2, $4 and $7 winners. Plus a lot of people have won free tickets.”
The top winner at Korner Market as of late yesterday afternoon was Terry Wanamaker, who won $75.
In the instant winner games, which are the only games currently available, stores will pay up to $599 on the spot. The stores can pay that money in cash or write a check if they don’t have that much money on hand. Winnings higher than that will come from the state.