A 40-year-old Burlington man took home a $1 million lottery prize after a convenience store clerk made a mistake printing his tickets.
Josh Buster, who works as a prep chef at a Burlington restaurant, asked for five “easy-pick” plays for the April 15 Mega Millions drawing at MK Mini Mart, 101 E. Mount Pleasant St, according to a news release from the Iowa Lottery.
The clerk initially printed just one play from the lottery terminal. The clerk then asked Buster if he could print four more plays for him on a separate ticket.
Buster said that at first, he had trouble believing what he was seeing when he scanned his tickets via the LotteryPlus app Saturday morning on April 16th.
“I don’t usually have good luck, so I thought it was a mistake and there was going to be an error,” he said. “So I Googled the lottery numbers to make sure I had the right ones, and I did! And then the rest of the day, I’m just waiting to wake up from a dream.”
Buster’s prize is the second of at least $1 million won this year in Iowa. In January, a New Hampton couple won a $2 million Powerball® prize.
MK Mini Mart will receive a $1,000 bonus from the Iowa Lottery for selling the $1 million-winning ticket.
Buster said he likely will use some of his winnings to pay off his car and the mortgage on his mother’s house, then will put the rest away for retirement.
“It will take away a lot of my stress in my life — no more of the financial worries,” he said.
Buster said he never really expected to win big.
“I always wanted to!” he said. “I never thought I would, though. But I kept playing.”
Players in $2 Mega Millions choose their first five numbers from a pool of 70, and another number – called the Mega Ball – from a separate pool of 25. The Megaplier option is available for an extra $1 per play.
Powerball and Mega Millions are both lotto games with jackpot prizes that have climbed to more than $1 billion. But while Powerball’s drawings are on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays, the Mega Millions drawings are on Tuesdays and Fridays.
| Prize amount: | $1 million |
| 24 percent federal withholding: | $240,000 |
| 5 percent state withholding: | $50,000 |
| Net winnings: | $710,000 |