Bartender wins $50,000 after patron leaves lottery ticket as tip

Taylor Russey says she will use the money to get dental work

Bartender Taylor Russey's Lottery ticket was given to her by a regular customer (EPA)

A Missouri bartender was left a $50,000 (£38,800) tip in the form of a lottery ticket.

Taylor Russey received the PowerBall ticket from one of his regular customers at Bleacher’s Bar in O’Fallon, Missouri.

“One of the regulars will buy the rest of the regulars in the bar Lottery tickets every now and then, especially when it’s high,” Ms Russey told Missouri Lottery. “And he did that on Saturday – he bought all of us Lottery tickets.”

When the bar’s lottery terminal flagged that a winning ticket had been purchased at that location, Ms Russey didn’t immediately know she had won.

“I was like, ‘Guys, who won all this money and didn’t tell anybody?’” Ms Russey recalled.

The numbers on Ms Russey’s ticket matched four of the five numbers pulled on October 19.

When she scanned her ticket at the bar’s lottery machine, she had a moment of shock.

“It told me I couldn’t cash it, that I had to claim the prize at a lottery office because I won $50,000,” Ms Russey told the New York Post. “I kind of stood there for a second, looked at the cook and then looked at the ticket before I started laughing and then I started crying.”

Ms Russey says she plans to keep her job at Bleacher’s Bar, where she has worked for three years, and that her only plan for her financial windfall is to get some dental work.