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.
People scratch them in a rush. They buy dozens at a time and rush though each one. I find a lot of winners of $2 or $5. If it were that much and I could somehow figure out who originally bought it then I'd return it to them. A good strategy is buy fewer of them and scratch them at home or someplace where you can take your time and check them carefully. If you buy a Crossword then you have to check much more carefully than one where you are just looking for 3 icons or amounts.
Honesty, integrity, whatever it was that made him give the ticket back, Good Job! I'm sure the player will break him off a piece in gratitude and it's a win win situation.
If someone was honest enough to return a winning ticket or scratch-off to me that I had accidently left behind or dropped, I would surely give that person a portion of my winnings. I would at least give 5 or 10 percent to that person. Good job George!!!!!!
Good story!!
People scratch them in a rush. They buy dozens at a time and rush though each one. I find a lot of winners of $2 or $5. If it were that much and I could somehow figure out who originally bought it then I'd return it to them. A good strategy is buy fewer of them and scratch them at home or someplace where you can take your time and check them carefully. If you buy a Crossword then you have to check much more carefully than one where you are just looking for 3 icons or amounts.
"Pay It Forward"
way to go George..good on you!!
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The store owner's honesty will likely net him more dedicated customers.
Wow. You don't see honesty like that anymore.
Wow, talk about honesty. Hardly anyone would do that nowadays.
Good for him!!! God bless an honest man!
litebets
Something tells me that this store owner is about to receive MUCH more.
............."good lookin' out!"
Well, CT doesn't put validation codes on their tickets like most states, so I can see how that can happen.
If someone was honest enough to return a winning ticket or scratch-off to me that I had accidently left behind or dropped, I would surely give that person a portion of my winnings. I would at least give 5 or 10 percent to that person. Good job George!!!!!!
Good deeds have their own rewards.