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Florida man cashes in $5.7 million lottery winnings at Snowmass liquor store


Florida man cashes in .7 million lottery winnings at Snowmass liquor store

Florida man cashes in .7 million lottery winnings at Snowmass liquor store
A man who purchased a winning lottery ticket at Sundance Liquor and Gifts in Snowmass Village claimed his $5.7 million winnings.
Lucy Peterson/The Aspen Times

A man who bought a winning lottery ticket at Sundance Liquor and Gifts in Snowmass Village earlier this month was not, as store owners initially thought, a local.

The lucky winner was Kurt P. of Indialantic, Florida, the Colorado Lottery announced. He picked up his $5.7 million jackpot at lottery headquarters in Denver, Sundance co-owner Barbara Bakios-Wickes told the Aspen Times.

Kurt declined to give the Colorado Lottery any further identifying information.



The winning ticket is among the 20 highest payouts in the Colorado Lotto+. Bakios-Wickes said it was the first time Sundance had sold a winning lottery ticket, and the owners initially believed a Snowmass local had purchased the ticket after reviewing security camera footage. But the information the lottery gave her was incorrect about when it was purchased, she said.

“The time and date they gave us was wrong,” she said. “We had our cameras with us and thought we knew who it was, but as it turns out it had been purchased from our back desk and not the front desk, so it wasn’t the person we thought.”



For the sale of the ticket, Sundance received a $10,000 credit from the Colorado Lottery. Instead of a $10,000 reward, the credit will be used toward future lottery tickets the store can sell to its customers, Bakios-Wickes said.

The lottery ticket was sold to coincide with the Snowmass liquor store’s 45th anniversary. Every year on its birthday, Sundance hosts a one-day sale with 30% off all stores as a thank you to its customers. The sale was announced a day in advance and the announcement “spread like wildfire” through the community, Bakios-Wickes said.

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