A gas station in Methuen has been deemed as “lucky” after it has sold five big prizes in the past two months. But is there a trick to all the luck?
Ted’s Stateline Mobil’s seemingly lucky streak started on May 3 when a customer claimed the $1 million prize from a winning ticket sold from there for the instant ticket game “$10,000,000 Bonus Wins.” Rebecca Wilson then claimed a $1 million winning ticket from the store on May 18.
That’s when Brittany Briody and her mother decided to drive to the store, located at 551 Broadway in Methuen, to purchase their Mega Millions ticket. And on June 3, the Methuen gas station proved to be lucky yet again.
But it didn’t end there.
On June 14, Michelle Khoury won the $25,000 a year for life prize from a “Lucky for Life” ticket sold at Ted’s Stateline Mobil in Methuen. And a $100,000 prize from the game “Massachusetts Millionaires’ Club” was sold there earlier this week.
“It’s complete luck,” said store owner Tony Amico. “It’s complete luck and it’s volume.”
Ted’s Stateline Mobil in Methuen is the top lottery agent in the commonwealth, which means the amount of lottery tickets might have something to do with how many big winners they have.
And that’s on purpose. The store is near the New Hampshire border, meaning people could buy items, such as cigarettes, with less tax a few miles away, Amico said. He also noticed they weren’t buying much of his other items but they were buying lottery tickets.
“People seemed to come in and they wanted to play the lottery. They didn’t want to buy a bag of chips or a sandwich,” Amico said. “So, we started to eliminate the gondolas of snacks and create tables and try to make it comfortable for the people to sit down.”
Amico’s brother owned the gas station before him. Since noticing the trend, they added TVs for people to watch Keno, seating and five lottery machines, so people don’t have to wait in line.
“We have a large parking lot so people can park. We have TVs outside where they can watch Keno,” he said. ”We have a smoking hut for people that want to smoke. We have tables inside where they can sit and relax and watch any one of several screens for Keno. And they can sit there and have coffee and scratch their tickets, which is what people love to do.”
In fact, it doesn’t look too much like a gas station.
“When people come in they go, ‘What is this? A casino?’ It appears to be a gas station on the outside but walk in and we don’t sell too many snacks or cigarettes,” he said. “It’s really just scratch tickets.”
The Methuen gas station isn’t new to big winners either.
Decades ago, Amico said the store had a $35 million winner and a $46 million winner. They’ve also had $4 million winners and get multiple Mass Cash winners each year.
He said he loves when he sees a regular customer win big.
“Everybody’s happy,” he said.
Their focus also helped them during the pandemic. People still aren’t filling up with as much gas as before the pandemic due to working from home and high gas prices but they continued to buy lottery tickets, Amico said.
“The government gave out a lot of stipend money and they spent it on a dream,” he said, adding that “a lot of people’s dreams did come true.”
And in turn, that helps the store. For each winning ticket, the Massachusetts State Lottery gives the store money. That money has gone to upkeep of the store and making sure they can continue to employ about 12 people, Amico said.
“We’re definitely behind on our gas sales. So those four winners really helped us out,” he said. “The bills don’t stop because you don’t make as much money.”
As for Amico’s tip on winning the lottery — “you’ve got to buy the lottery to win the lottery.”
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