EVERETT — For Owen Osborn, winning the lottery means paying off his house, investing for retirement and affording to fix his teeth.
On Wednesday, the affable convenience store clerk, who has worked at Wilson’s Delicatessen in Everett for 19 years, won a $2.3 million jackpot to become Washington’s newest millionaire, according to Washington’s Lottery.
But that’s false advertising, Osborn said in the state lottery office near Silver Lake on Thursday.
He’s taking the lump sum option, which will leave him with $862,500 after taxes.
“But that’s enough,” said Osborn, who is 48 and has a tinge of gray in his long beard. He lives with his wife, Pat, in Smokey Point.
So what’s he going to do?
“My wife’s already got it spent,” he said.
Seriously.
“I’m not going to Disneyland,” he said. “Maybe Mukilteo.”
What else?
“First things first. Pay off the house, then there’s debts and I have dental work that I can now afford, retirement accounts, vacation, whatever, nothing extravagant,” he said.
While he has insurance through his wife’s job at Fred Meyer, Owen said it took winning the lottery for them to be able to afford the dentures he so badly needs.
He said he might also drop in on some old friends in the Bahamas.
At Wilson’s Delicatessen on 26th Street and Rucker Avenue on Thursday, Owen’s co-workers and longtime customers were delighted.
“It’s so nice to see someone win who needs it,” Joe Doyle said at the checkout counter with a bottle of Dr. Pepper and a stick of beef jerky. “He’s a great guy and always has a joke to tell.”
Wilson’s gets plenty of customers from the Salvation Army soup kitchen, which is next door.
“But he treats everyone with respect, no matter who they are,” said Edgar Buchanan, a neighbor who dropped by the store Thursday.
Hyosin “Mary” Wilson, who bought the delicatessen with her husband a few years ago, described Owen as a people person who has a great rapport with customers.
“He’s good hearted, but also witty,” she said. “Everybody loves him.”
Osborn said he doesn’t plan on quitting his job, though he may ask to take some time off.
“I’m not going to give my two-weeks notice,” he said.
Owen bought the winning ticket at 7-Eleven on Broadway in Everett while running errands.
The store will receive $23,000 from the Washington Lottery for selling the ticket.
Osborn plays Lotto religiously. When took a vacation to the Midwest a few years ago to visit his wife’s family, he bought a few lottery tickets in advance.
For the past 17 years, Osborn said he has bought at least two tickets every drawing and, until the big payday, figures after winnings he shells out about $1 a drawing.
He once won a $1,000.
Every drawing he uses the same game plan.
He buys one ticket with randomly generated numbers and a second with the lucky numbers he found in the horoscope column in The Herald on his birthday six years ago.
It was that sequence, 2-8-14-27-33-46, that won him the big bucks this week.
During a commercial break from NBC’s “Deal or No Deal” Wednesday night, Osborn called the lottery’s toll-free number and heard his numbers.
He called a second time just to make sure he heard correctly.
“I was ecstatic,” he said. “It was like the night before Christmas.”
Reporter David Chircop: 425-339-3429 or dchircop@heraldnet.com.
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