$3M winning Mega Millions lottery ticket sold at Schnucks in Cape

Someone who bought a Missouri Lottery ticket in Cape Girardeau this week is $3 million richer today.

A Mega Millions lottery ticket sold at the Cape Girardeau Schnucks supermarket matched all five white-ball numbers in Tuesday night’s lottery drawing, making it worth $1 million. By adding the “megaplier” option, the ticket’s value increased to $3 million.

As of Wednesday afternoon, the winner (or winners) had not come forward. Missouri Lottery winners have 180 days from the date of the drawing to claim their prize, which means whoever purchased the $3 million ticket at Schnucks has until April 25 to redeem it.

Schnucks employees learned about the winning ticket Wednesday morning.

“We’re all pretty excited,” said Laurie Powers, assistant customer service manager at the Cape Girardeau Schnucks.

Powers said store employees were checking their lottery tickets Wednesday to see whether any of them had won.

“I just hope it was somebody in my family,” she said laughing.

Paul Simon, senior communications and community relations specialist with Schnuck Markets Inc. in St. Louis, said this was among the largest Mega Millions lottery wins at any of Schnucks’ 115 locations in recent memory. He said the commission Schnucks earned for selling the winning ticket will directly benefit the Cape Girardeau store.

The winning numbers Tuesday night were 5, 8, 10, 17 and 48, and the “megaplier” number was 3. The Mega Ball was 23.

In a news release Wednesday, Missouri Lottery executive director May Scheve Reardon said the holder of the winning ticket is the 533rd Missouri Lottery-made millionaire.

She said whoever has the ticket should sign the back of it and keep it in a safe place until it can be presented at one of the Missouri Lottery’s four offices in St. Louis, Jefferson City, Springfield and Kansas City.

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