Gift from customers earns bartender $50,000 Powerball prize

Oct. 30 (UPI) -- A Missouri bartender said a gift from a customer turned into a $50,000 tip when the man gave her a Powerball ticket.

Taylor Russey, a bartender at Bleacher's Bar in O'Fallon, told Missouri Lottery officials the business' Lottery terminal alerted staff Sunday that a ticket purchased at the bar was a $50,000 winner in Saturday night's drawing.

"I was like, 'Guys, who won all this money and didn't tell anybody?'" Russey said.

The bartender said she then remembered the ticket given to her by a customer Saturday.

"One of the regulars will buy the rest of the regulars in the bar lottery tickets every now and then, especially when it's high," Russey said. "And he did that on Saturday -- he bought all of us lottery tickets."

Russey's ticket matched four of the five numbers and the Powerball in the drawing. The numbers pulled Saturday night were 14-27-29-59-65 and Powerball 12.