MARYSVILLE — Craig O’Dell of Tulalip is a regular lottery customer at the 4th Street Market and Deli looking to recapture the $100,000 grand feeling he experienced 18 years ago.
He still remembers it like it was yesterday.
It was 9 p.m. on Aug. 14, 1999. O’Dell paid for his gas at the Marysville Chevron station on Grove Street near the library, and handed his waiting wife a $5 scratch ticket — “I buy, she scratches” while he filled the tank. The silence broke when his wife “flipped out” after seeing that they had finally scored a winning ticket.
O’Dell has come close to repeating that winning feeling a few times when he visits the 4th Street Market to play his favorite Match 4 scratch game .
The store averages $9,600 a week in ticket scratch and online sales, thanks to the hard work of owners Chang and Mi An, their friendly store clerks, and a loyal customer base.
For that and other reasons, the 4th Street Market was named Washington’s Lottery Regional Retailer of the Year for the Everett region, which encompasses just under 1,000 retailers extending from the Canadian border to Renton.
“Department of Imagination” Lottery officials were at the store to celebrate Tuesday. The Ans immigrated from South Korea in 1988, pursuing the American dream running teriyaki before buying the market on 4th.
Luck plays a role in games of chance, but not in choosing the Lottery’s top retailer, said Susan Berger, Lottery district sales representative.
“They are a small, independent store. They don’t sell gas or make deli sandwiches,” Berger said. “They don’t have a soda fountain bar. When you factor in all the things they don’t have, I think they do a ‘fantabulous’ job,” she said.
The Ans received a $500 cash prize, an award plaque, and polo shirts stitched with “Regional Retailer of the Year.”
Mi was “very surprised by the honors,” she said.
The market has seen some huge wins over the years: A $5.2 million Lotto jackpot in 2013 from a ticket sold to a Marysville man, a Hit5 winner worth $100,000, and a $50,000 Powerball tick last year from a $1.5 billion jackpot drawing.
What makes their store so lucky? Thank their grandparents, maybe.
“There is a saying in Korean culture that if you do good deeds in your lifetime, three generations will be blessed,” said an interpreter on behalf of the Ans, who are also devout Christians.
