N.H. man buys lottery ticket in Hampden, wins $100,000

HAMPDEN – A New Hampshire man will have a much merrier Christmas this year after winning $100,000 from a Powerball ticket he bought at Dysart’s Convenience Store.

Clerks at the Coldbrook Road store don’t know the man’s name, but they know one of their lottery machines confirmed his winning ticket on Wednesday, four days after the Nov. 20 drawing.

“He comes in here twice a week,” store manager Kelley Dunton said Thursday. “I guess he was really excited.”

The man has not yet officially claimed the prize, but he plans to today, Dunton said. He has one year from Nov. 20, the day the ticket was purchased, to pick up the dough.

The ticket is the second $100,000 Powerball winner to be purchased in Maine since the game debuted in the state on July 30, according to Mickey Boardman, lottery representative with the Maine Bureau of Alcoholic Beverages and Lottery Operations.

The first was sold on Sept. 15 at Polly’s Variety in Oxford, he said. The two $100,000 prizes are the largest Powerball sums won in the state so far, Boardman said.

The total jackpot for the week of Nov. 20, $83 million, was carried over to the next drawing. Three players correctly matched the 5 white numbers, which were 4-29-45-48-50, and won $100,000, according to a Multi-State Lottery Association press release.

The other two winning tickets were purchased in Delaware and Vermont, the release said.

The jackpot has since climbed to an estimated $145 million.

The New Hampshire man’s ticket was one of the usual 20 he purchases once a week, Dunton said. Believed to be a business owner, the man said he plans to use the money to put his two children through college, she said.

State and federal taxes will eat up 30 percent of the money, which will be issued in a lump sum, Boardman said.

The mystery man stopped at the store again on Thursday, but was shy about giving out his name, Dunton said.

“He wouldn’t even let us put his first name on the marquee to say congratulations,” she said.The store will get a bonus of 1 percent of the winnings, or $1,000. The money will be turned over to the Dysart’s main office, Dunton said.

The marquee caused some commotion in town earlier this week when a store employee put up a message reading, “$100,000 winner sold here,” not yet knowing who held the winning ticket. Passersby on their way to work turned around and went home to check their tickets, Dunton said.

“They said, ‘I don’t care if I’m late to work,'” she said.

The winner just has to claim what’s his, Boardman said.

“He can walk out of here with a check that day,” he said.