Cashier Sells Self $1M Ticket: Maryjane Hart, Doniphan, Mo., Woman, Sells Herself Winning Powerball Ticket

A cashier in Doniphan, Mo., sold herself a $1 million lottery ticket, just one week after winning $500 off of a Pick 4 ticket.

Maryjane Hart, a 57-year-old convenience store cashier and pharmacy technician, won $1 million in last Saturday’s $590 million Powerball jackpot, ABC News reports. Incredibly, she had sold the winning ticket to herself.

“We’re just little common people here in a very poor community, so this has been a very big deal to everybody here,” Hart said. “It’s the buzz of the town.”

Hart hadn’t realized that she had purchased the winning ticket until her ex-husband called her on Saturday, ABC News. He informed her that a winning Powerball ticket had been sold at Hartland Pit Stop, the convenience store that Hart once owned for 25 years, and where she now works as a weekend cashier.

“I said, ‘Well I had bought some tickets that morning,’ and he said, ‘Well, maybe you ought to check them,’” Hart told ABC News. The mother of three then drove to a local store to check her tickets, but still believed that her winnings were only worth $10,000. “I slung that ticket in my purse and got out of there before anybody saw it,” she added.

Next, Hart stopped at a second store, where both she and the attending clerk recognized that her winning Powerball ticket was actually worth $1 million. After spending 30 minutes on the phone convincing her daughter, Nicki, that she had won, Hart drove to the state lottery office to claim her winnings on Monday morning.

“I still didn’t believe it until we got to the lottery office and the guy started shaking his head and said congratulations,” Hart said. “Then I knew it was real.”

Hart told ABC News that she plays the lottery regularly, but has never won more than the $500 prize she received from a Quick Pick ticket the previous Friday. While she usually picks her numbers based on NASCAR drivers’ numbers, she was in such a rush on Saturday that she selected quick pick numbers.

The 57-year-old is expected to receive a $710,000 direct deposit, the amount that she is owed after taxes. She told ABC News that she plans to use the money on a vacation, “just as quick as my boss will let me take a week.” She also plans on spending some of the money on her children, especially her son, David, who suffered severe injuries in a car accident when he was 17. “Last week his Jeep wouldn’t run so I had to take him to get groceries and run errands,” Hart said. “I told him I plan on buying him a vehicle that will start every morning. He started crying.”