$200,000 New Mexico Lottery Prize Lands in Carlsbad

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4/27/2010 9:35:21 AM - ALBUQUERQUE – A pool of 26 Powerball® players who work in Carlsbad claimed a $200,000 prize from the New Mexico Lottery Friday.

The winners are employees of URS Corp. and they have been playing as a pool for five years. Crew chiefs Reymundo “Rey” Dominguez and Kennith Murray, both of Carlsbad, collect everybody’s stake and buy the pool’s Powerball tickets. On April 21, the pool hit its biggest prize ever. One of its quick-pick tickets matched the drawing’s five winning white balls of 11, 34, 41, 49 and 55 to win $200,000. The ticket missed the red Powerball of 20, which would have hit the night’s jackpot of $258 million.

Dominguez discovered the prize the next morning when he stopped at a store to check his tickets.

“The clerk whispered to me that I had won $200,000,” he recalled for lottery officials in Albuquerque. “I said, ‘That’s good because I need to split it 26 ways.’”

Dominguez and Murray announced the pool’s good fortune in their morning safety meeting.

“I said ‘I have good news and I have bad news,’” Dominguez recalled. “The bad news is we still have to come to work. The good news is we won $200,000.”

“They just looked at me,” he said. “Nobody believed me.”

To prove the point, Dominguez and Murray produced the prize-validation receipt reading “Winner. Claim at Lottery.”

“Every time they give me their money, they tell me to get good numbers,” Dominguez said. “It felt good to win something for the guys.”

Murray said the $200,000 prize fits his theory on winning.

“I always said that we were going to win a little first and then we’d win the big one,” he explained. “Now we’re going to win big.”

Each winner received an after-tax check for approximately $5,300. Murray said he plans to pay bills. Dominguez wants to give his grandson a blow-out birthday party and finish a barn. The other winners plan to put their prize toward home improvements, landscaping and savings.

The pool’s lucky ticket came from Food Jet No. 2 at 3102 National Parks Highway in Carlsbad.

The other winners are Carlsbad residents David Perkins, Mike Demoss, Mike Sowers, G’rard Duarte, Randy Richardson, Anastacio Aguilar, Danny Hinojos, Don Elles, Ismael Duarte, Anthony Zila, Efrain Duarte, Scott Arney, Michael Woodard, Rodolfo Parra, Saul Ruiz, Elton Hernandez, Rick Bryant, Rajan Kunjukunju, Christopher Carnero and Justin Cantrell; Randall Campbell of Artesia; and Missouri residents Richard Harmon, Michael Battreal and Greg Kean.

Lottery Beneficiaries in Eddy County

All net revenues from the sale of New Mexico Lottery games benefit a tuition-assistance program for New Mexico residents attending the state’s public colleges and universities. Since 1996, the lottery has raised $435 million for education and more than 61,000 students have attended college on Legislative Lottery Scholarships.

As of the Spring 2009 semester, 1,900 high school graduates and GED recipients from Eddy County have received $7 million in Legislative Lottery Scholarships.