26 Mechanics to Split $25.9-Million Lottery

For two years, 26 maintenance workers at American Airlines in Tulsa, Okla., have followed a once-a-month ritual of pooling their money to buy lottery tickets. Their home state doesn’t have a lottery, so Marco Enriquez, 38, drove an hour north each month to the Gunny Sack convenience store, just across the border in Caney, Kan. The ritual paid off big Saturday, when the mechanics shared a $150-million Powerball jackpot with two other winning tickets, one in Missouri and the other in Minnesota. The American Airlines workers chose to take their winnings in a lump sum of $25.9 million. After taxes, each member of the group will receive $668,458, for a total after-tax prize of about $17.4 million.