Twelve employees and friends of the Wilsey Realty office on Lafayette Street, Cape May shared a winning $50,000 dollar Power Ball ticket purchased at West Side Market in West Cape May.
Cookie Wilsey, purchaser of the group’s Power Ball ticket, said the group purchased 60 tickets with the pooled $120.00 they collected. Described as the office’s good-luck charm by sister Gail, Cookie Wilsey was sent to West Side Market, on Broadway Avenue in West Cape May at 4:00 p.m. on Jan 12. West Side Market owner Patrick Sluk sold the ticket to Cookie.
“I was incredibly happy that a winning ticket was sold locally here in Cape May,” Sluk, owner of West Side Market said. “For a while sales at the Power Ball machine out-paced sales in the market,” he said.
“For about ten minutes we were not sure if we had won a million dollars,” Cookie Wilsey said.
The sisters realized about 11:30 p.m. the night of the drawing, that they might have a winning ticket. Together, they drove in their pajamas to the Wilsey Realty office where the tickets were kept.
“We started texting the others in our group around 1:00 a.m. Thursday morning, and they thought we were joking,” Gail Wilsey said.
They had matched up the purchased ticket with the published numbers from the drawing earlier in the evening. Their winning ticket was estimated to be worth $50,000. Divided by the twelve participants each will get approximately $4,000.
“It was like having a real estate closing with out the big dance” said Barry Bruno, agent at the office.
A ticket sold in Atlantic County and a ticket sold in Ocean County are worth $100,000 each. The ticket in Atlantic County was sold at KK Gift and Grocery on Ventnor Avenue in Atlantic City. The ticket in Ocean County was sold at Fischer Bay Exxon in Toms River.
The Wilsey group’s ticket had 4 of 5 numbers plus the power ball. If they had matched one more number the group would have had a share in the $1.6 billion drawing. The winners of the world-record jackpot overcame staggering odds of 1 in 292.2 million to land on all the numbers: 4-8-19-27-34 and Powerball 10.
Three other tickets in the $50,000 category were sold in New Jersey. A winning ticket was sold at the Wawa on English Creek Avenue in Egg Harbor Township, another was sold at the Arctic General Store on Arctic Avenue in Atlantic City.
Gail and Pam Barsdy, personally drove the winning ticket to Trenton for verification and confirmation on Thursday. She said checks would be mailed to the participating winners in two to three weeks.
“We feel extremely blessed to be so fortunate to have won,” Gail Wilsey, owner of the agency said. Patrick Sluk said, he believed a big winner was due anytime in Cape May County.
Congratulations. It’s great to hear “locals” shared in a prize. That’s $4000 ya didn’t have before the Powerball drawing. Good news.
Congratulations to you all! What a great positive way to start 2016. May it continue.