PORT TOWNSEND — A woman playing the Mega Millions lotto game on a hunch won $250,000 with a ticket purchased at QFC supermarket on Sheridan Street last week.
Mary Turner of Port Townsend “had a feeling” she was going to win and bought two tickets, according to a news release that was sent out by Washington’s Lottery on Monday.
“We don’t play [the lottery] very often,” Turner said in a statement released by the state Lottery Commission.
“But we knew there was a big jackpot, and my daughter and I just felt we were going to win, maybe not the big jackpot, but something.”
Indeed, the jackpot for a Mega Millions player who hit five numbers in any order plus a specific Mega Ball number was a 26-year annuity of $319 million.
The drawing in the multistate game, played in Washington, 40 other states, the District of Columbia and U.S. Virgin Islands, was held Friday night.
The winning $319 million ticket was sold — reportedly to a group of seven coworkers — in upstate New York.
Turner and 31 other players in Friday’s drawing hit all five of the lotto numbers for $250,000 prizes each.
A second $250,000 Washington winner who bought a ticket at a Safeway store in Washougal has not come forward.
Turner and her daughter checked the numbers twice before going to QFC to verify them a third time.
“We had discussed it before we went in and decided that if we really did win, we were going to pretend like nothing happened,” Turner said in the prepared statement.
“But we couldn’t help but squeal a little bit when we found out.”
Turner said the family is excited and humbled, and plans to pay bills, give to charity and put money aside for their son’s Gonzaga University tuition.
She said she would give each member of the family $1,000 “play money” and also planned to “give money to someone on the street” on Monday afternoon after claiming her winnings.
Turner has declined all media inquiries, according to the public relations company for the state lottery.
Washington’s other multistate lotto game, Powerball, has accrued a jackpot of $153 million for Wednesday’s drawing.
The winner can select the 26-year annuity for the total jackpot, or accept a lump-sum payment of $77.4 million, the Powerball website, www.powerball.com, said Monday.
With the jackpot won last Friday, the Mega Millions top prize reverts to an annuity totaling $12 million, or $7.6 million lump sum, for tonight’s drawing.
The jackpots increase in value when nobody wins the top prize.
