By David Fleet
Editor
Ortonville— It pays to play Lottery in the village.
The Genesee County based Lunch Bunch Crew Lottery club, who on June 18 purchased a $1 Lotto 47 ticket at Tom’s Market, 465 South St., recently traveled to Lansing and collected $1.85 million.
The club members, who chose to remain anonymous, had been playing for two decades. A club member reported they read about their winner in the June 25 edition of The Citizen newspaper.
The Lunch Bunch Crew Lottery club visited Lottery headquarters to claim the big prize. They chose to receive their prize as one lump-sum payment of about $1.2 million rather than annuity payments for the full amount.
“We are still in shock! Winning is life-changing for all of us,” said a club member.
“A co-worker and I started a Lottery club about 20 years ago,” said the club’s representative. “There are currently five of us in the club and we take turns purchasing a ticket each week.”
“One day at work, a few of us saw an article about a winning Lotto 47 ticket that was sold in Ortonville and remembered we had never checked our ticket. We texted the club member who had purchased it asking where she purchased the ticket and if she had checked it yet. When we got a reply from her saying she had not checked it, but purchased it at Tom’s Market, we knew right away. We started jumping and shouting with joy!”
Tom’s Market sells about 1,000 Lotto 47 tickets per week and they will make $5,000 on the winning ticket.