Following a solid week of a whole lotta snow, George and Louise Schmidt of Mystic showed up at CT Lottery headquarters in Rocky Hill Monday afternoon knee-deep, in a whole “Lotto” dough—a $4.7 million jackpot, to be exact.
“When I looked in the newspaper Saturday morning to check the winning numbers and saw all my numbers matched, I let out a shout. I couldn’t believe it,” said George with a laugh. “Louise heard me, and asked what was wrong. I told her we won the jackpot—she didn’t believe it either. We went right out and put the ticket in a safe deposit box. We didn’t want anything to happen to it.”
George and Louise’s Lotto “Quick Pick” ticket contained the numbers 6-11-13-37-40-42, a perfect match to the winning numbers drawn Friday, January 30, 2015. In total, 5,313 winning Lotto tickets were sold for that date, with prizes ranging from $2 to $4.7 million.
After rolling 55 consecutive draws, Schmidt’s winning match for the $4.7 million jackpot marks the first time this year that a jackpot winning ticket was sold in Lotto, Connecticut’s longest running jackpot game.
The Lotto jackpot is payable as a 21-year annuity or a one-time cash lump-sum. The Schmidts opted to claim the jackpot’s cash lump-sum prize for $3,697,585 (before taxes), with plans already in place for their winnings. “We’re going to help the kids first. Then, we’re probably going to get a camper and see the country. There are so many places we haven’t seen yet.”
Universal Package Store, located at 680 W. Main Street in Norwich, will also have a reason to celebrate the Schmidts’ good fortune. For selling the jackpot winning ticket, Universal Package Store will receive a $10,000 bonus from the CT Lottery.
The overall chance of winning a prize in Lotto is 1 in 39.3. The chance of winning the jackpot is 1 in approximately 7.1 million.The CT Lottery reminds the public that purchasers must be 18 or older, and to please play responsibly.
Mystic Couple Wins a Whole “Lotto” Dough
February 18, 2015 by