The store has sold a number of large lottery prizes, including $250,000 on Mega Millions and $1 million on an instant ticket in 2007. Store manager Eddie Virani has counted a total of seven Georgia Lottery wins of more than $10,000 since then.
“We’ve had seven lucky winners,” he said. “It’s just luck for us and the winners.”
The winner of $40,000 is Amy Jordan of Cartersville.
Virani said Jordan bought the ticket, left the store but came back minutes later in disbelief.
“I thought she was kidding, but I looked and it really was a $40,000 ticket,” he recalled.
Since selling a string of lucky tickets, Virani said that “Lucky Marathon” now is displayed as the store’s marquee.
“We’ve had all these winners,” he explained. “It’s a lucky store.”
Since its first year, the Georgia Lottery Corp. has returned more than $12.7 billion to the state of Georgia for education. All Georgia Lottery profits go to pay for specific educational programs, including Georgia’s HOPE Scholarship Program and Georgia’s Pre-K Program. More than 1.3 million students have received HOPE, and more than 1.1 million 4-year-olds have attended the statewide, voluntary prekindergarten program.