Connecticut Lottery: Man finds $50,000 lottery ticket, returns it to owner

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A deli owner in Newington found a winning lottery ticket in the trash and returned it to his customer.

George Rusin has a loyal customer base at Your Store deli in Newington, Connecticut. He gets credit for his talent in the kitchen and his honesty behind the counter.

George says he sees people buy scratch tickets and leave them behind all day. He knew one day he was bound to find a big winner in the trash.

"I thought it was a dinky $5 winner, then I'm seeing a five and four big zeroes at the end. I put it through the machine and it was $50,000," said George.

Rusin thought about keeping the $50,000 ticket, but he remembered seeing the customer scratching it on the table.

"My heart stopped. It's a regular customer and I just couldn't do it," George said.

So George left the deli to find the winner who works down the street at a scrap metal yard.

"I told him, 'you missed something here, and I mean you really missing something.' I handed it to him, he looked at it and couldn't believe it," said George.

Customers like Ralph Maglio are impressed with George's honesty saying, "To do something like that, it's incredible. Anybody else would have taken it and cashed the ticket themselves."

George says he couldn't sleep at night if he cashed in someone else's ticket. Returning it to its rightful owner is all in a day's work.

"It's no big deal. I don't think it was nothing really. You know, it's a regular customer," said George.

Thanks to George, a customer is now $50,000 richer.