This ‘lucky’ Nantucket shop sold three winning $1M lottery tickets since March

On Tuesday morning, a blonde woman in a summery plaid Ralph Lauren button-up and pink baseball hat walked up to the counter at the Old South Diner & Market on Nantucket.

“Hi there. I’d just like a lucky scratch ticket,” she told the employee standing in front of a wall covered in lottery scratch tickets. They shared a small knowing smile.

Kimberly Robinson ended up buying two $10 crossword lottery tickets and a pack of Marlboro Lights while her husband, Christopher, waited in the car. The Pennsylvania couple, who met on the island 25 years ago, were enjoying their last week of summering at their Siasconset home.

They’re two of many who’ve stopped at the store for a ticket in recent weeks, said supervisor Binod BK, after the third million-dollar lottery ticket it sold in the past six months was claimed last Wednesday.

As one of the locations on-island that flies under vacationers’ radars, Old South Diner is the only place in Massachusetts that’s sold more than two grand prize tickets since January 2023.

“We’re leaving next Tuesday, and we were going by on the road and we thought, ‘Why not?’ We might be lucky enough to win a million,” Kimberly Robinson told MassLive. The couple held up their unscratched “$2,000,000 50X Cashword” tickets outside the shop.

The mart is located mid-island near the airport at 57 Old South Road. One side of the year-round establishment is stocked with standard convenience store fare, along with hot coffee, buns and cakes. It also has a Chinese food takeout window. The other side is a restaurant that hasn’t been open since the pandemic.

Lottery ticket sales average about $80,000 to $100,000 each month at the store, BK said, higher than the statewide monthly sale average of $70,000. Old South Diner is consistently in the top 20% for annual sales among all lottery agents, the Lottery said.

The shop reported $1.4 million in total sales in 2023. It’s already hit $1.13 million in sales so far this year, the Lottery said, with scratch tickets making up just under $1 million.

Even though some Nantucket businesses operate on a seasonal basis, it’s “always on-season for lottery people,” at the market, BK said. He attributed the frequent wins this year to the store’s high volume of ticket sales.

BK said his usual customers are almost exclusively local islanders and laborers. Many of them have favorite scratch ticket games they’ll buy regularly.

But foot traffic has picked up even more as vacationers recently started to find their way to the local favorite store.

“One person who came in said, ‘I came from Long Island, give me a winner!’” BK said laughing. In the five minutes Robinson was at the store, at least 15 people, including a landscaping team and several construction workers, wandered in and out.

Most walked away with at least one scratch ticket.

And while there aren’t special tricks or particular tickets his customers are buying, BK said two of this year’s big wins involved some unexplainable luck.

BK recalled the second of the three winners, a Hyannis man named Garen Downie, was unusually certain when he swung by the store in June to try his luck.

As he stood at the Old South Diner counter, Downie told BK he knew he was going to win.

“He was 100% sure about it. He was like, ‘I’m going to win something,’ he was very confident,” the store supervisor said.

Downie spent $50 on a scratch ticket game called “Lifetime Millions” that day, and became the first lottery player in the state to win a $2 million prize in the game.

Weeks later, in August, BK intuitively felt there would be another lottery win at his store. It was just before local restaurateur Sean Durnin claimed his $1 million prize on Aug. 21.

“For the last one, in my dream, I saw a $1 million ticket,” BK said, adding he didn’t know when it would be sold but that it would happen. “It’s crazy, I can’t believe it. It’s just weird,” he said.

While the first $1 million winner who was visiting his girlfriend on the island, Jose Fontanez of Boston, didn’t report any psychic happenings, Downie and BK are far from the first in the state to have a premonition about winning the lottery come true.

In July, Howard Kendall of Plymouth dreamed he bought a ticket for a specific lottery game and then won $1 million after buying the ticket the next day.

Patricia Harris, of Holliston, said she dreamed she’d win the lottery six months before she won $25,000 a year for life during a “Lucky for Life” drawing last September and claimed her prize in March.

According to the lottery, the magic is in a store’s sale quantity.

“The more tickets a store sells, the more likely they are to have a big winner,” said Lottery spokesperson Christian Teja. All stores that have sold multiple winning tickets of $1 million or more over the last two years are in the top 20% among all retailers in annual sales, he added.

The Lottery has sent at least $30,000 to Old South Diner in bonuses for selling the winning tickets. While BK said he’s not sure what the plans will be for the money, he’s happy Old South Diner has been spreading the wealth and joy.

“It’s so good for people,” BK said. “People are struggling all the time, and it helps. It’s pretty great.”

This post was originally published on this site