Scarlet Pearl Casino buys lottery tickets for its employees
Six numbers could make every employee at Scarlet Pearl Resort and Casino a millionaire Friday night.
The Mega Millions lottery jackpot is up to $1.28 billion — with a B — and growing before the drawing at 10 p.m. Friday.
“We bought 900 tickets total,” said LouAnn Pappas, CEO of Scarlet Pearl, which comes to one for each employee. The tickets went into a pool so if one ticket has the winning numbers, everyone will be a winner.
The winning ticket would amount to more than $1.2 million for each employee, spread out over 20 years. The cash option to take the winnings in a lump sum is $648 million.
Uncle Sam would be the first relative to come calling for a share of the winnings. The federal withholding tax is 24% off the top before the winners are paid.
The live drawing will be broadcast on every television in the D’Iberville casino, Pappas said.
It generally takes two hours to determine if any winning tickets were sold, according to Mega Millions.
Life-changing jackpot
At $2 a ticket, the cost was $1,800 but the impact was priceless, she said.
The idea to buy the tickets came during a brainstorming session with Bob Granieri, the owner of Scarlet Pearl, as they talked about how the money would change their employees’ lives.
Once the tickets were tucked safely away, Pappas alerted the employees about the lottery ticket bonanza in a text message Thursday night and then posted it to the Scarlet Pearl employee Facebook page.
Reaction from the staff
What followed, she said, were “hundreds of text messages and comments.
- “Wow! Thank you so much! What a wonderful thing to do! The best casino to work for.”
- “Wow. U guys r the best. So glad i made the decision to leave my old job and come here!!”
- Especially for those with 2+ jobs. It’d be amazing for them.”
- Thank you so much, Love my Pearl family! And good luck to us.”
They didn’t have to go far to buy the tickets — Scarlet Pearl has a lottery machine in the lobby gift shop, where the $1 billion-plus jackpot has people lined up to buy the winning ticket.
Other companies have been buying the Mega Millions lottery tickets as a perk for their staff. Todd Graves, the founder of Raising Cane’s fast-food restaurant bought 50,000 Mega Millions tickets, or one for all 50,000 employees.
That purchase came before the jackpot climbed above $1 billion and launched even more dreams of how to spend the winnings.
This story was originally published July 29, 2022 at 11:42 AM.
