Amazing run of luck

The bar has sold several other winners.
By LAURE CIOFFI
VINDICATOR NEW CASTLE BUREAU
WEST MIDDLESEX, Pa. -- The Middlesex Inn has done it again.
The bar on Pa. Route 18 sold another top prize scratch-off ticket winner in the Pennsylvania Lottery.
Owner Ben Grand said the ticket was sold to one of his regular customers April 27, just a day after the new game was released.
Amazing 8's, a new $5 scratch-off game introduced by the Pennsylvania Lottery, has eight grand prizes of $88,888. Grand said the winning ticket was the 39th ticket he had sold out of that first batch he received.
The winner asked the bartender to check the ticket to make sure he was reading it correctly when he realized he had won, Grand said.
The regular customer of the bar has asked not to be identified.
Grand said word of the winning ticket spread fast through West Middlesex, a tiny borough of about 1,000 people. The bartender called Grand at home around 10 p.m. and by 3:30 a.m. when the bar owner arrived at the Middlesex Diner for breakfast the news was out, he said.
"They were telling me about it [at the restaurant]" he said, laughing.
Pennsylvania Lottery spokesman Steve Kniley said the winning ticket was turned in to lottery officials May 5. He was unsure if any of the seven other top prizes for Amazing 8's had been turned in.
Other lucky patrons
This isn't the first top prize won by a patron of the Middlesex Inn.
Kniley said that in 1987 a person buying a Super 7 -- a now defunct game -- ticket at the bar, won $1,999,726. Another Super 7 winner from the bar walked away with a $127,000 prize, he said.
The bar also sold another top instant prize ticket in 1987 for $75,000, the state spokesman said. He said there have also been numerous winners of prizes $20,000 and under sold at the Middlesex Inn.
Kniley said he was unable to determine if the Middlesex Inn has sold more than its fair share of winners.
"It's really dependent on sales," he said.
Grand, however, feels he's been fortunate with his lottery sales, which he says are a nice supplement to the bar business. He first started selling tickets in the early 1980s.
"It's been good to me," Grand said.
Grand, however, says he's ready to give up the business he started Dec. 10, 1970. He said the bar is up for sale.