Charmed Four Times

Once, twice, three times a Texas lottery millionaire - now it's four. Joan R. Ginther, a native of Bishop, Texas, made her fourth appearance on Monday at lottery headquarters in Austin to collect seven figures, lottery officials said. Ginther, 63, won $10 million, the top prize in Texas Lottery's $140,000,000 Extreme Payout scratch-off ticket she bought for $50, pushing her total wins to $20.4 million.

It was her third time to win on a ticket from a Bishop store, and second one at the Times Market there. "This is a very lucky store," said Bob Solis, store manager. Store owner Sun Bae is the one with the lucky hand, Solis said. "Sun sold both the winning tickets to the woman."

The store, which sells about 1,000 lottery tickets daily, now is eligible to receive a bonus of $10,000 for the second time. In 1993 Ginther first won a $5.4 million share of an $11 million Lotto Texas jackpot for a ticket bought in Bishop. She opted for annual payments of $270,000 (excluding tax charges) for 19 years. The cost of her lottery ticket could not be determined.

On year 13, while visiting Bishop to care for her father in 2006, Ginther won the top prize of $2 million in the Holiday Millionaire game thanks to a $30 scratch-off ticket. Ginther requested a lump-sum payment of about $1.5 million, after the 25 percent taken by the commission for taxes. In 2008, she collected a $3 million prize in Millions and Millions, another scratch-off, at the same Times Market where she won this week. That scratch-off ticket's cost also was not reported.