42 Taco Comfort Solutions employees split Powerball prize

By: Chloe Leshner

cleshner@abc6.com

@cleshnerabc6

CRANSTON — A lucky $1 million Powerball ticket sold in Pawtucket. Only there wasn’t 1 winner, there are 42. They’re workers at Taco in Fall River and today they collected their prize money at the RI Lottery headquarters in Cranston.

The 42 people that work for Taco Comfort Solutions will now get to live a little more comfortably. They each put in just 20 bucks and will get a $16,000 pay out.

Being handed a check for $1 million is so unlikely most people only dream about it. In fact, the odds of winning the $1 million Powerball prize, 1 in 18,492,000.

That dream is now a reality for the Taco 42.

"At 5:30 I started looking at all the numbers when I saw all 5 numbers I was like oh my god, I couldn’t breathe. The guy behind me in the cafeteria asked me what happened, what’s wrong with you and I said we won, we won," says the man who bought the winning ticket, but did not want to give his name.

Disbelief was the first reaction for many of the 42 people who are getting a cut of the prize.

"He said to me, we won and I said don’t mess with me you have to be honest. It was tears, screaming and laughter," says Bridget Turgeon, one of the winners.

Whenever the jackpot gets big Taco employees start an office pool. This is the only time they’ve won more than $20.

They man who started the pool and bought the ticket got it at Darlington Liquors in Pawtucket. His strategy is to play in both Rhode Island and Massachusetts.

Split among all 42 people, the prize becomes $16,000, a welcome influx of cash, but nothing to go crazy with.

"I heard maybe a couple vacations, paying off bills just stuff that they wouldn’t normally do," says Turgeon.

Saturday’s Powerball drawing is for $435 million, they already bought a ticket with their winning numbers.

©WLNE-TV / ABC6 2017