Barton 1792 distillery workers win $50,000 in Kentucky Lottery office pool

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- A group of distillery workers won $50,000 playing the Kentucky Lottery.

A group of Barton 1792 Distillery workers have been paying into an office pool for a over a year to purchase tickets for the three weekly Powerball drawings. Chris Smith purchases the tickets for the group of 17 coworkers.

"We all play the lottery, every week I go around, I collect money from everybody, and we got a little pool going," Smith said to lottery officials. “Usually we’ll win, like, four bucks or eight bucks. Once we won $100. This weekend we won $50,000, which is a pretty good little payout for everybody.”

Smith bought the winning ticket on March 21 at Walmart in Bardstown. He scanned it after Saturday night's drawing.

"I scanned it on the machine, $50,000 showed up, and the first thing I do is look and see who is behind me. Anybody see that?" Smith said. "It felt pretty nice, you know? And then I took it home and scanned it on my phone just to make sure it read the same, and it did, and I was like, okay."

While Smith typically buys the group's tickets at a Bardstown convenience store, but decided to buy the tickets at Walmart. The winning Powerball numbers were 6 – 7 – 25 – 46 – 57 Powerball 12.

Kentucky Lottery president and CEO Mary Harville greeted the group of distillery workers with a $50,000 ceremonial check. Each coworker received $2,941 after taxes.

"You could tell these winners were a tight-knit group and truly enjoyed being around each other because they were laughing and joking with one another while we were printing their checks," Harville said in a news release.

The group has worked at Barton 1792 for several years. Walmart will receive $500 for selling the winning ticket.

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