I feel for Allan and Stella Wickham, the owners of newsXpress Eli Waters, the business where the winning ticket in the $70M Powerball jackpot was purchased. I feel for them because they are attracting nutters from around the country, people approaching them because they think they got a great payout as a percentage of the $70M . They are also being approached to get them to put people in touch with the winners.
People have requests for a share of the money for charities and all sorts of crazy plans.
It does not help when Allan and Stella say they did not get a percentage or they cannot connect with the winner for private reasons. People persist. Even today, weeks after the win.
While it would be easy to laugh off the interruptions, they are so considerable that they get in the way of everyday business.
So, I feel for Allan and Stella – and any other newsagent hit by similar circumstances. However, the $70M prize is a record for a single winner.
In 2007 by newsagency at Forest Hill sold a $11M winning ticket in Powerball. It was a house syndicate we created. There were plenty who were sure we had a share in the syndicate so there was that to deal with as well as the nuttiness of some of the syndicate members who wanted their share the next day even though we had to wait the two weeks and then pass the month through our account – yes that is the way Tatts did it then.
While I like the model I have seen in some overseas locations of the selling business getting a small percentage of a major jackpot, it would bring with it problems beyond the nutters newsagents selling winning tickets have to face today.
The USA model of the retailer getting a share of large winnings looks enticing until you factor in they only receive 5% commission on sales. There’s probably 3 or 4 thousand lottery retailers in Australia and the number who sell a large jackpot in a year could be counted on one hand, I think I like our system better.
As to “nutter’s” I’ve never sold a 1st division winner, yet they seem to come into my shop everyday.
I will be very rude to those nutters and tell them to get out in seconds