Val IS a Logical Suspect

Yesterday I told you about the $50,000 scratcher winner that was bought at 10Box. Turns out I am not the only one curious about the winner.

I didn't go to 10Box on Sunday, because I visited The Pony. Nor on Tuesday, because I went instead to Casey's. I suppose the workers there had missed my almost-daily visit to their lottery machines to buy my crossword scratchers. Other stores run out, and I find myself going in 10Box even on days I had not planned. I'm pretty much a regular there.

Wednesday, I had finished getting my tickets, and was limping towards the door. A worker came over to greet me. Not so much greet, as stand at my shoulder and look at me with raised eyebrows. Much like I might have done to a student on the verge of unacceptable behavior, though I favored the ONE raised eyebrow tactic.

Anyhoo... Worker Gal is some kind of management, because they call her up front when they need somebody at the service desk for a problem, or to redeem a winning scratcher up to $500. She has stepped up to talk to me at the machines before, and bought tickets on her break. She also clears out the losing scratchers people put in the wastebasket between them, or the winners after redeeming them in the machines. They can be scanned on the MOLottery app for points and drawings. 

Anyhoo... I said to Worker Gal:

"I hear somebody won $50,000 on one of your Christmas tickets!"

"Uh huh. We're all trying to figure out who it was." Again, she gave me the raised-eyebrow look.

"It wasn't me! I guarantee you, if I won it, I'd be walking in the doors announcing it to everybody! No secrets for me! Sad thing is, I don't like those tickets, and I quit buying them after I gave them a try."

"I don't like them, either. But I bought some."

"You can bet I won't buy them now! No big winner here again!"

"They came back in and scanned it on our machine to see if it really won."

"Which machine? The one they got it out of?"

"Well, we don't know."

"Don't you have surveillance video you could look at, to see who it was?"

"We don't' know exactly when it was."

That's the thing. Worker Gal only knew what I did, having read it on the MOLottery website News Releases. You don't know the exact date it was bought. Only that she cashed it in during this month. Worker Gal followed me out the doors, to have a smoke break while I was getting in T-Hoe.

"We've been talking about who it could have been. Discussing all our regulars. And then we ask when we see them. We're really hoping it was one of our regulars. SOMEBODY got a nice Christmas present!"

"Yes. I hope it was someone who really needs the money. But who doesn't, right? I hope it's something that can change their life. I'll let you know if I hear anything. You know, sometimes they talk about it in other stores."

So the mystery continues. We may never know. Missouri has a law (since 2021) that they can't release the names of winners without their permission. They used to, listing everything from $1000 and higher, with the winner's name and town. Now it's just the town and the store.