Bartender wins $50,000 after getting a lottery ticket for a tip

A bartender in Missouri got a massive tip when a customer left her a winning lottery ticket worth $50,000.

It would sound like an unusual item to receive as a tip, but winner and Bleacher’s Bar staff member Taylor Russey told the Missouri Lottery that this was a normal occurrence for this particular customer.

“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.”

The next day the staff found out that a winning lottery ticket was purchased at their bar. Russey said she even joked about it, not knowing it was her that held the ticket.

“I was like, ‘Guys, who won all this money and didn’t tell anybody?'” Russey recalled.

She then remembered the tip and scanned her ticket, only to find that she was the one who was now $50,000 richer.

The ticket matched four of the five white-ball numbers drawn on Oct. 19, plus the Powerball, the lottery said. It was the 40th $50,000 winner sold in Missouri and only the second one this year.