Winning ticket sold at Great Bend Casey’s

Kansas Lottery

Philip Likens of La Crosse has a particular strategy when buying instant tickets, and this time his plan paid off with a $20,000 win when he played the $2 Double Bonus Crossword!

“I always buy two of whatever tickets I’m getting,” said Likens. “This time I bought $18 worth of tickets, but only two of each kind. When we get home with the tickets, I’ll take one and my wife will take the other, and then we’ll scratch the tickets together.”

Likens explained he miscounted the number of words on his crossword ticket at first and his wife, Gretchen, figured out how much they had actually won.

“I only counted eight words at first, and I was pretty excited for $500! She’s the one who recounted and figured out how many words we had, and how much the ticket was worth. I still don’t believe it,” he said.

The Likens family was already planning a vacation, so their big win comes at the perfect time.

“We were planning a cruise for us and our daughters for this year. We will probably use some of the winnings to pay for the trip, and put the rest into savings for now,” said Likens.

The winning ticket was sold at Casey’s General Store 1905 at 1315 10th Street in Great Bend. There are still six $20,000 top prizes left in the $2 Double Bonus Crossword instant scratch game, as well as thousands in other cash prizes.