Florida man claims $5.7 million winning lottery ticket at a Snowmass liquor store

A man who purchased a winning lottery ticket at Sundance Liquor and Gifts in Snowmass Village earlier this month turned out to not be a local, like store owners originally thought.

The lucky winner was Kurt P. from Indialantic, Florida, the Colorado Lottery announced. He claimed his $5.7 million jackpot at the lottery’s headquarters in Denver, Sundance co-owner Barbara Bakios-Wickes told The Aspen Times.

Kurt declined to give any other identifying information to the Colorado Lottery.

The winning ticket is among the top 20 highest payouts for the Colorado Lotto+. Bakios-Wickes said it was the first time Sundance sold a winning lottery ticket, and the owners initially believed a Snowmass local bought the ticket after reviewing security camera footage. But the information the lottery gave her wasn’t accurate about the time of the purchase, she said.

“The time and date that they had given us was inaccurate,” she said. “We had our cameras and we thought we knew who it was, and as it turned out, it was purchased from our back machine and not from the front desk, so it wasn’t who we thought it was.”

Sundance received a $10,000 credit from the Colorado Lottery for selling the ticket. Instead of a $10,000 reward, the credit will go toward the store’s future purchases of lottery tickets to sell to customers, Bakios-Wickes said.

The lottery ticket was sold at the same time as the liquor store’s 45th anniversary in Snowmass. Every year to celebrate its birthday, Sundance has a one-day 30% off storewide sale to thank its customers. The sale was announced one day in advance and the announcement “spread like wildfire” in the community, Bakios-Wickes said.