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Tickets were selling quickly at Plum Food Mart in Springfield on Thursday. The store is known for its history of producing lottery winners and is seventh in the state for the number of tickets and lottery games it sells.
In 2017, Plum Food Market sold close to $3 million in lottery tickets, co-owner Hiral Patel told the Springfield News-Sun.
“I think because we sell so much we’re bound to have more winners,” Patel said.
The best time to buy a ticket is before the end of the work day Friday, Patel said. Once the clock ticks to 3 p.m., customers tend to start flooding into stores to buy tickets before the 10:45 p.m. cutoff for the drawing.
Lottery machines tend to slow down when more people are playing, Patel said, so the high demand could result in longer lines at shops selling tickets over the next day or so.
"Buy today. Don't wait for tomorrow," Patel said
The $970 million Mega Millions jackpot refers to the annuity option, paid over 29 years. Most winners take the immediate cash option, which would pay $513 million.
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No one has matched all six numbers to win the Mega Millions since July 24. That's in part due to the game's odds of one in 302.5 million. But, the long odds haven't stopped customers like Cole Barker, who won $2 million from a scratch-off lottery game he bought at Plum Food Market in 2011.
Barker was at the store to buy Mega Millions tickets on Thursday. He's in five different Mega Millions pools, including one in Texas.
Though Barker admitted the lottery is strictly a game of chance, he did have some advice for people hoping to win the jackpot.
"It's all luck of the draw," he said. "Just try and bring good karma with you and always believe that you're going to win and eventually you will."
The Associated Press contributed to this reprot.
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