Family wins big lottery
Published: May 11, 2005
When the Wisconsin Lottery people called Lake of the Woods Campground to tell the owners someone had purchased the winning $4 million Megabucks ticket at their place they knew it wouldn’t be too hard to figure out who won.
There’s not too much happening at a campground the first week of May, said Mark Scimeca, whose family owns and operates the 240-acre camp in Marquette County.
“There were no campers up here. We weren’t even open full-time,” he said.
The Scimecas started going over the list of customers they’d seen in the bar that week. Almost as an afterthought, they decided to check their own tickets, Mark Scimeca said.
Against all odds, one of the Scimecas held the winning ticket. As the retail outlet for the Wisconsin Lottery, they had sold themselves the winning ticket.
The family has not yet revealed which one of them holds the winning ticket. They will travel to Madison this morning to collect the prize.
“We were shocked. We almost didn’t believe it. You hear about it happening but you never believe it could be you. We really didn’t believe it for two or two-and-a-half days,” Mark Scimeca said.
The Scimecas have been in the business of selling lottery tickets for years. The family member who purchased the winning ticket buys tickets routinely every week.
Still, the news that they won was stunning.
“It came out of nowhere,” Mark Scimeca said.
It certainly is unusual for a retailer to also be a big winner.
“I cannot think of another time when a retailer won the jackpot,” said Jessica Iverson of the Wisconsin Lottery.
There’s nothing in the rules that says a retailer can’t be a winner. “They can play like anyone else. They have the same chance as anyone. They had a lucky day,” she said.
This recent lucky day follows a not so lucky day two years ago when a fire at the camp got out of control and swept through 572 acres, destroying woods and grasslands in nearby Waushara County. Hundreds of firefighters from 17 departments fought the blaze.
Marquette County District Attorney Richard Dufour reviewed the case and decided not to pursue criminal charges against the man who started the fire. Instead Jeffrey Knaack, a part-time camp employee, was cited for allowing a fire to escape. He was fined $138, Dufour said,
Being both the seller and the buyer of the winning lottery ticket has an added financial bonus. The retailer receives 2 percent of the prize value up to $100,000. That means Lake of the Woods Campground will receive $80,000 for selling the winning ticket, Iverson said.
The winner has two choices in accepting the prize. He or she may take a cash lump sum of about $2.3 million or the full $4 million in yearly payments over 25 years, Iverson said.
The Scimecas have not yet decided how they will take the prize.
They have decided they’ll have an event at the campground in a few days to celebrate their win. More details will be announced later.
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