For a brief moment, one of the two men who run Food R Us convenience store in Palm Springs, Florida, had their hands on a slip of paper worth $40 million.
Then they passed it to one of their customers.
The small, neighborhood store on Congress Avenue sold the sole winning ticket for Saturday's Florida Lotto jackpot.
"The winning numbers passed through our hands," said Raj "Sam" Savdas, who managers the store with Nicholas Azavedo. "We are wishing them good luck. We have a lot of good customers who keep coming and playing."
As of Saturday evening, no one had claimed the prize. And no one had visited the store claiming to be the winner.
Azavedo, the store's assistant manager, said many of the store's customers live in the Palm Springs neighborhood west of Congress. But because Food R Us is located on busy Congress Avenue, Azavedo said the winner may have just been passing by.
"Nobody knows when they bought the ticket," Azavedo said. "We wish him good luck and God bless."
Food R Us sold 1,500 tickets for Saturday night's drawing, Azavedo said. The winning numbers picked Saturday were 13-15-18-22-29-44.
News that Food R Us sold the winning ticket spread slowly Saturday as customers trickled into the store.
West Palm Beach resident Randy Cox rarely plays the lottery. He said he was going to buy a lotto ticket from the store last week, but decided against it because he was in a hurry.
"I should have," Cox lamented. "I wish it would have been me."
Even if he had bought a ticket there, doesn't mean he would of won. Anyways congrats to whoever did win!
People always say stuff like that! "Oh, I only live 5 miles from that store" as if they would have bought a ticket the same day at that exact moment.
Like you, I send my congrats to the winner, but I like hearing that a regular lottery player hit. I don't care if the person is rich or poor, young or old, but when I read "it was the first time I ever played and it was only because I found an extra dollar on the floor of my car" it always makes me wonder why I bother!