GEORGETOWN TOWNSHIP, Mich. — A Mega Millions mistake by an office employee is paying off for her and 20 of her Ottawa County coworkers.
The Michigan Lottery says the Bus Busters lottery club won $1 million during the historic Mega Millions drawing on Oct. 23.
All 21 winners work for SoundOff Commercial Vehicle Solutions in Hudsonville.
The lottery club's representative said they pooled their money for lottery tickets, with their boss matching the amount for a total of $212. However, the woman who volunteered to buy the lottery tickets only purchased Mega Millions tickets, not a mix of Mega Millions and Powerball tickets as the group had planned.
It turns out the last ticket she bought matched all five white balls drawn, winning a $1 million prize.
The lottery club's spokesman says although each member contributed varying amounts, they all agreed to divvy up the winnings evenly, which will amount to about $47,600 each before taxes.
"Everyone's plans for the money are a little different, but I know a lot of folks are looking forward to sharing with family, paying for college tuition, and I wouldn't be surprised to see some new cars in the parking lot at work," said lottery club representative David Lantzy.
The winning ticket was sold by Bricks, located at 862 44th Street SW in Georgetown Township. It's the second big winning ticket the store sold in a month. On Oct. 3, Bricks sold a $2 million Michigan Raffle ticket to an Ottawa County mom.
(Click to display full-size in gallery)
(Click to display full-size in gallery)
Congrats to All the Winners!
Time and Again Tickets Purchased in Error Turn Out to be Winners!
Congratulations!!
On a side note my rant about stopping MP and or PP lasted only one draw! The MP for that drawing was 3, so they did lose a bit...but so what? Won a lot more than here!!
<scratching head> I am wondering if she should be put in charge of buying the tickets again for the group or not ?
If you look at the ticket, 2 lines had the "5" as Mega Number. They had "15" as their Mega Number.
Congratulation to all the winners. I don't believe any one is going to be upset about the other set of tickets she was going to purchase in Powerball tickets. Nice story.
Yes, because buying multiple tickets for a single drawing gives you a mathematical advantage over spreading out your money for several different drawings. She must be the smart one in the group.
So close yet so far away. Congratulations never the less.
Great advertising for the Company.
I just double-look at that when you're mentioning it meatman,yep. wow.
i personally won many pick 3's
today(same number)so i can just imagine how happy the people in this picture-story is feelin' right about now.
this is great. i can just imagine all the happiness they feel.
this is awesome, as a bunch they all won great job, and shout out
to BRICK's or Bricky's, they get a nice pay day too."
Way to go! I see all diff people in this happy pix, and i know they are going to enjoy it utilize it/invest it wisely to last.
God bless them.
Bye all. Good luck with all of your lottery games this week, and thereafter.
Always keep your mistake tickets, or even take someone else's when the store has them.
Ya never know...
Congrats to them all!!!
Congratulations
The lottery club's spokesman says although each member contributed varying amounts, they all agreed to divvy up the winnings evenly, which will amount to about $47,600 each before taxes.
That could have disastrous had those contributing more demanded a pari-mutual payoff.
Where I used to work, we did a pool when the jackpots got high. One guy used to put in twice the amount. He said it was for his son. We stopped that quickly and said "If we win, you can give him a share of your money"
Exactly Stack. It's like the old saying " it's all fun and games, until someone loses an eye." Meaning to me,l will play along, until we hit a " major" jackpot & then we can turn around and look at the room. Oh Jack, who is married, threw in $2.00. But Peter, the bachelor, threw in $10.. you know where l am going with this..
Kinda reminds me of a lottery story l read here about a guy from NY or NJ who was head of this pool. When they won, he claimed that he bought the winning ticket separately from the group. The others took him to court & won "years" later. I want to say the guy's name was Americo..could be wrong, but there.
I remember that one.. wasn't that back around 2012 ish ?.. Guess I could go look,but I am being a sluggapotomus today.
Or was it this one ?
https://www.lotterypost.com/news/243644
That's the story CD!
The only way he could prove that he bought his tickets separately from the group's tickets would be if the ticket numbers were not from that sequence.
The backs of the tickets have numbers printed on them. If those were not in the group of tickets purchased for the group, then I would conclude he purchased them on his own and were not part of the group's tickets.
I guess he couldn't prove that, so he had to pay up.
This is why lottery pools are such a terrible idea. When someone wins, the greed factor explodes, and you have to fight back against parasites.
Very lucky for all of them!
l think you right. Your post got me thinking. To avoid this " mix up" if you are the designated lottery ticket purchaser in a pool,buy all the pools tickets at one location. When you good and done with that. Cross the street if you have to and buy your own batch at another location. If push come to shove from the pool if you win, hire an attorney on the cheap and instruct him to say the following. 60 tickets for the pool were bought at Sandy's bakery- that's the total amount, not a ticket more, not a ticket less. My 6 were bought across the street at Andy's liquor... so what's the problem? But hey, l still love you guys!
* Crickets
I don't really understand the mentality of someone who would play in an office pool and individually on the side for the same drawing. Such a person would be better off not joining their office pool in the first place and using the money saved to buy more tickets for their own lottery habit.
Perhaps these people thinking is " l can kill two birds with one stone." Whatever the reason, it can be viewed as entering treacherous waters.You know that if you in a pool & playing on the side, and you win, there is bound to be problems. No amount of explaining how you won is going to be good enough.l view pools as a leper colony.
Maybe they like living on the edge. The thrill they get from risking a nasty lawsuit is an outgrowth of the thrill they get playing lotto.
It's very simple oate.
Let's say you join a pool at work. There are 50 people in the pool and everyone contributes $2.
That's 50 tickets. If one of them wins, you get 1/50th of the winnings.
You weren't going to buy 50 tickets on your own, maybe just 5 at a cost of $10.
For $12, you have 55 chances of winning instead of just the 5 you were going to buy anyway.
You can also look at it this way...You aren't the organizer of the pool and just put up your $2 like everyone else and then on the way home, you stop and get 5 more tickets, purchased separately from the pool's tickets. If you were to win the jackpot, the people in the pool wouldn't expect you to share with them since they were your personal tickets.
The odds of winning are not any better by having more tickets. You just have more chances.
I wonder if this is how I will act when I win....
the people in the pool wouldn't expect you to share with them since they were your personal tickets.
Tell that the ambulance chaser your lottery pool just hired.
"This is why lottery pools are such a terrible idea. When someone wins, the greed factor explodes"
Yeah, you can see very clearly how that happened here by the way the people who contributed more shared the prize equally with those who contributed less.
"To avoid this " mix up" if you are the designated lottery ticket purchaser in a pool,buy all the pools tickets at one location."
If people are smart enough to have a written agreement it should be a no brainer to have a designated place to buy pool tickets and have all participants buy personal tickets at different locations. Of course a lot of pools consist of people who simply aren't smart, or who aren't smart enough to anticipate the problems and plan for them.
"I don't really understand the mentality of someone who would play in an office pool and individually"
Maybe you just don't understand probability. Or psychology. I imagine a lot of people participate in office pools just because they're afraid of the possibility of being the poor schmuck who wasn't along for the ride when all their coworkers won millions of dollars and quit.
Maybe you don't understand the word "and."
And?
I thought of a way to solve this problem: have a lottery pool contract which states which numbers the pool is playing. The numbers NEVER change.
Say there are 50 players. The contract should state the following 50 numbers shall be played:
ticket #1 27 42 44 48 54 PB 23
ticket #2 11 17 35 58 64 PB 9
ticket #3 5 7 21 26 47 PB 22
...
ticket #50 11 25 27 50 52 PB 6
Then if the person who buys the lottery tickets wants to play on his own, fine, but UNDER CONTRACT, you MUST play numbers that are NOT in the pool. This means you can't buy a quick pick, because there is a chance that QP will pick the same numbers as the 50 tickets.
It's more time consuming but makes lottery pools less legally dangerous territory.
That is not legally sound to bar anyone from playing certain numbers. We have an attorney in my office (and no, it is not me since I pass on pools) who runs a small pool when the jackpots are large and she simply makes a copy of all the tickets she bought and everyone gets a copy. If she wants to buy tickets on her own, she has to buy them in a separate trip.
That kinda sounds like what I said.
Lol lol Great clip.
restricted to certain numbers ??? interesting POV
I am more along the lines of freedom of choice type of person. Bring your ticket in and you are part of the pool. You don't, then you are not in.
If the pool is defined as a list of numbers to be played, then it's crystal clear whether or not the pool won. When you hand someone a bunch of OPM and say "go buy quickpicks" you invite legal trouble.
Decent people don't file a lawsuit joining a pool after the fact, or claiming it was just their own personal ticket, etc., but sadly the moral compass can get smashed to bits when millions of dollars are available for the taking.
It is crystal clear when there is a time noted on the pool tickets, everyone receives a copy of the tickets, and you purchase your own hours or days later. My office uses a sign in sheet and everyone who plays contributes the same amount. No one can put money in for anyone else, or buy more than an equal share, etc. They even consult with me on it even though I don't participate. The issue is not whether you may be sued but whether your actions are legally defensible.
The average was $5 per player in this group and their employer matched the total. Because she bought all MM tickets instead of half PB tickets show they weren't all on the same page. But it could be worse had she bought "jackpot only" tickets and they matched five on one of those tickets.
I'm assuming by "numbers" you mean lines because 50 lines have 250 numbers which doesn't leave very many numbers to play. With 300 million possible outcomes the odds against buying a QP matching one of those lines extremely high and that line matching the jackpot winning numbers is astronomical high.
Jury trials are why weekly lottery pools can be legally dangerous especially when players quit or don't pay. Uncomplicated one time pools are the best bet.
You're right, I meant 50 lines (or sets of numbers).
While it's true that the probability of one QP matches one of the lottery pool tickets is low, so is the chance of winning. In fact they are exactly the same.
The probability of just two QP matching one of the lottery pool tickets (50 in 150 million) is double the chance of the pool winning (50 in 300 million).