Joy White thought it was a joke when a lottery official went into her One Stop convenience store in Stuttgart on April Fools' Day to tell her she had sold the highest-winning lottery ticket in state history.
In photos: $1 million+ lottery winners
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"I didn't believe her at first," said White, who has been the store's manager off and on for 13 years. "And then I was like, 'what! Why didn't I buy a ticket?'"
Somewhere in the state someone is sitting on that golden ticket, worth $177 million in annuities or a cash prize of $107 million. After taxes, the cash winnings would be roughly $70 million to $75 million.
It's the first Mega Millions jackpot-winning ticket sold in the state, chosen Friday night using the computer-generated quick pick option. The winning numbers were 17, 24, 27, 32, 58, with the Mega Ball number of 10 and the Megaplier of 3.
The ticket-holder can claim the winnings as soon as Monday morning when the office of the Arkansas Scholarship Lottery in Little Rock opens at 8 a.m.
If the winnings are claimed, White's store would receive a $50,000 selling bonus, lottery Director Bishop Woosley said.
"You always hear that in a small state people never win, and this kinda disproves that. So hopefully our players will understand that you can actually win the jackpot," Woosley said. "It will be a big deal for us for sure."
White said she couldn't clearly recall to whom she may have sold that ticket during her double shift Friday, but she did have one possible candidate in mind.
"I have this one guy who comes in, and he plays the lottery like a religion," she said. "And he's always in here early in the morning when he plays his tickets, even when he's sick."
But on Saturday morning he broke that routine, White said.
"I went by his house and he's not home," she said. "So I'm thinking, 'is he in Little Rock?'"
The One Stop convenience store White manages, a Valero gas station just off Arkansas 165, sells the second-highest number of lottery tickets in Arkansas County, which has a population just under 19,000.
Whoever the winner is would hold the record for the biggest jackpot won in Arkansas. The state's previous record holder was Harold Bailey, a Conway man who won a $25 million Powerball jackpot in January 2010. That ticket was sold by the Crackerbox Food Store No. 25 in Mayflower.
Bailey kept media and lottery officials guessing for days before he finally claimed his winnings. It wasn't until the month after the ticket was sold that lottery officials released his name.
After state and federal taxes, Bailey's takeaway was $8.26 million.
The Arkansas Scholarship Lottery began in 2009 and has helped provide nearly $700 million for scholarships to students across the state. Players have won nearly $2 billion in prizes, and retailers have earned more than $178 million in commissions, the state's lottery website says.
The Mega Millions jackpot now resets to $15 million for the next drawing on Tuesday.
Metro on 04/02/2017