A corner convenience store in Rosenberg, Texas that reigns as the lottery-selling champion in the Houston area was buzzing Tuesday, selling tickets to eager customers hoping to claim the biggest prize in the Mega Millions drawing since Texas joined the multistate lottery.
A steady stream of traffic trying to cash in on the $155 million jackpot pulled in and out of Rudy's Stop & Shop, at FM 1640 and Damon, a brown brick facade with a small lot of only half a dozen parking spaces.
A line of regular customers like city of Rosenberg street maintenance worker Alfredo Garcia and Fort Bend County Sheriff's Department employee Renee Chaffin plunked down hundreds of dollars to buy almost 2,000 tickets for Tuesday's drawing.
"I'm buying for a pool of my co-workers," Garcia said before rushing back to his waiting truck.
Earlier this month, Texas joined 10 other states to play in Mega Millions, the latest version of a multistate lottery designed to generate jackpots in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Besides Texans, residents of Virginia, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio and Washington can play.
Tuesday's jackpot was the second largest since Mega Millions started in May 2002. The largest was $183 million, and in the past year, jackpots have averaged $42.3 million. Mega Millions' predecessor, The Big Game, began in 1996 and had a $363 million jackpot in May 2000.
Dolores Conner, who lives in the neighboring city of Richmond, stops twice a day at Rudy's, once in the morning to buy tickets and again in the afternoon to claim her winnings and buy more.
"When I hit that Mega Millions, I expect the red carpet out," joked Conner, who estimated she spends about $100 a week on her tickets, including scratch-offs.
Moiz Merchant, who is originally from India, has owned the store for the past three years. He credited his success to friendly customer service, including providing a jackpot of lottery information.
"We call most of our customers by name. We have the lottery bulletin board with the latest winning numbers. We have records of winning tickets dating back two years," Merchant said.
If only every lottery retailer was as "Lottery positive" as this guy. I am sure that there are lots of lottery directors who would love to sell this guy some stores.
I wonder if Lottery Directors are prohibited from OWNING stores.