Stores See Spike in Sales as Historic Jackpot Nears

Both registers open and the lines each backed to the door, said Mobil on the Run store employee Patrick Capano.

That was what the gas station at the intersection of Daniel Webster Highway and Baboosic Lake Road looked like around 4 p.m.

Those lines were driven by lottery mania, with a Powerball Jackpot at $550 million for Wednesday night's drawing.

"It has been a lot of of fun," Capano said, of the steady stream of customers who'd been through the door to buy their chance to become a super millionaire just before the holidays.

"I've had a few people who just turned 18 today and this was their first time buying a lottery ticket," Capano said.

His biggest sale to one person was earlier in the day to a man who bought $100 worth of tickets. But he's seen it even bigger than that.

"The last time Powerball got this high I had a man come in right when the store opened and bought $450 worth of tickets," he said.

It was a similar scenario at Reeds Ferry Market just up the road, near Daniel Webster Highway's intersection with Bedford Road and Exit 12 off the F.E. Everett Turnpike.

Sam Safa, owner of the convenience store, said the line has been pretty much nonstop since last Sunday.

"Once the jackpot gets over $200,000 its a madhouse," said Safa, who is one of the top lottery sellers in the state.

His store has sold nearly $200,000 in lottery tickets in the last 13 weeks, according to a print out that shows lottery sales at the top 20 stores in the state. It is the seventh-most in retail sales in New Hampshire.

In the region, Reeds Ferry Market is the top in sales by more than $10,000 more than Hannaford in Nashua, which has sold around $185,000 in the same time frame.

"We're selling up to 5,000 tickets a day," Safa said.

At $2 a pop, that means Safa's selling upwards of $10,000 in lottery tickets a day as the jackpot has continued to climb to more than half a billion dollars.

Tom Rues, a sales representative with the NH Lottery who was visiting Safa's store Wednesday afternoon to check on supply levels, said doubling the Powerball ticket price to $2 per play has done a lot to increase the jackpot levels.

Compared to the $1 per ticket price of Mega Millions, which climbed to $640 million eight months ago, nearly to the day, Rues said Powerball has to sell only half as many tickets for a jackpot that high.

"Once these jackpots hit a certain level, then it really starts to fly as people think about what they could do with that money," Rues said.

Rues said he'd been at the store about 30 minutes and it had been non-stop, never fewer than three people in line.

Guy York, a Merrimack resident in line at Reeds Ferry Market held a Power Ball ticket in his hand while he waited in line. York bought the ticket for Saturday's drawing and won $8 on it.

Hoping for a luckier draw this time around, York said he'd already bought five tickets and was going to put half of his Saturday winnings into the new jackpot – giving him two extra chances.

York said the only other time he has won a lottery game, something he admits he doesn't play often, was when he was given a free ticket as the NH Lottery was promoting a new game. He won $50 then.

On winning tonight's jackpot, York laughed and said he'd been thinking about that all day.

"All of my granchildren and the neighbors' children would have their educations paid for," York said.

Tonight's $550 million jackpot will pay a $360.9 lump sum jackpot if won. If no one takes home the prize, well, we can only guess what the jackpot will climb to for Saturday.

Best of luck to all who are playing!