Bartender gets tipped with a lottery ticket – and wins big, Missouri officials say

The lottery ticket a customer bought for a Missouri bartender turned out to be a huge tip.

As in, a $50,000 tip.

One of the “regulars” at Bleachers Bar and Franks in O’Fallon, Missouri, bought bartender Taylor Russey and others at the establishment Powerball tickets on Oct. 19, according to a news release.

“One of the regulars will buy the rest of the regulars in the bar lottery tickets every now and then, especially when it’s high,” Russey said, according to the news release.

But this time it was different.

When Russey showed up to work the next day, she learned that the bar had sold a winning Powerball ticket worth $50,000. She just didn’t know it was her.

“Guys, who won all this money and didn’t tell anybody?” Russey recalls asking others in the bar, according to the news release.

That’s when she remembered getting the ticket and scanned it at the terminal and found out she was the big winner.

It was the 40th ticket worth $50,000 sold in Missouri this year, officials said.

This story was originally published October 29, 2019 at 3:10 PM with the headline "Bartender gets tipped with a lottery ticket – and wins big, Missouri officials say."