Pat Kukla and his wife, Annette, pose for a photo after collecting a $384,832 Club Keno The Jack prize.
A Calhoun County man won a Michigan Lottery jackpot for the second time in his life, winning $384,832 playing the Club Keno The Jack game.
Pat Kukla, 56, of East Leroy, won $384,832 when his easy pick The Jack numbers – 07-10-13-27-38-53-69-72 -– matched eight of the 20 Club Keno numbers drawn in draw 1295996 on Thursday. He bought his winning ticket at MCB Sam’s Coffee Shop, located at 74 Washington Avenue North in Battle Creek.
Kukla may be the luckiest man in Calhoun County. His Club Keno The Jack win was the second time he has won a Lottery jackpot. In 2010, he won a Fantasy 5 jackpot of nearly $300,000.
“I never thought I’d win a jackpot once, let alone two times,” said Kukla. “I feel incredibly fortunate, that’s for sure.”
Kukla decided to play The Jack Thursday because it had grown to more than $300,000.
“I was playing Club Keno on my lunch break and I added The Jack because it had gotten so high,” Kukla said. “The next time I looked at the monitor, I saw the prize had reset to $10,000 so I scanned my ticket. When I saw I needed to contact the Lottery I knew I had won.”
Kukla called the Lottery to confirm he was the big winner and then stopped by his wife’s office, which is in the same building that he works in, to tell her the good news.
“She wasn’t in her office, so I left her a note that said I had won a big prize,” said Kukla. “A little while later she walked into my office and as soon as we made eye contact she had tears in her eyes and she said ‘How much did you win?’
Pat Kukla’s winning Club Keno The Jack ticket.
“When I told her I had won $384,000, we started celebrating.”
Kukla visited Lottery headquarters on Friday to claim his big prize. With his winnings, he plans to take a vacation with his wife, and do some charity work.
“When I won my first jackpot I used the money to buy a house, and I’ll be sure to put this to good use too,” Kukla said.
The Jack is a Club Keno add-on game that players may add to their Club Keno wager for as little as $1 per draw. With The Jack, players get eight easy pick numbers to match to the Club Keno numbers drawn. Players may win prizes ranging from $1 to the jackpot. The jackpot starts at $10,000 and grows until it is won. To win the jackpot, players must match all eight numbers.
Club Keno may be played at the 11,000 Lottery retailers across the state. Drawings are every three and a half minutes. Results and live drawings may be found online at http://www.michiganlottery.com.
