Raising Cane’s founder buys Mega Millions tickets for 50,000 workers, including Elk Grove
One billion dollars. The Mega Millions jackpot is now mega-Mega, and fast-food restaurant chain owner Todd Graves has cut his employees — all 50,000 — in on the action.
The jackpot will now be an incomprehensible $1.02 billion — $602.5 million cash — for Friday’s draw, after no winner emerged from Tuesday’s draw.
Graves, founder of Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers, did what a lot of people are doing this week ahead of the big draw. He bought lottery tickets. Except Graves bought 50,000 of them when the big prize was a poultry, sorry, paltry $810 million.
At $2 each, that’s $100,000, for a chance at a bonanza many, many times more.
No word on whether Graves also picked up a six-pack and a bag of chips.
And in Elk Grove, home of one of the restaurant chain’s newest Sacramento-area locations, word of the boss’ Mega Millions buy gave employees a chance to dream of a big payday.
“Everyone is super excited. To buy $50,000 in tickets, it’s phenomenal,” said Janna Sartini, a Raising Cane’s area leader.
Sartini said employees across the chain received word of Graves’ mass Mega Millions ticket buy Monday on their employee app.
With no winner on Tuesday, Graves bought a second batch of 50,000 tickets for Friday’s round. Raising Cane’s officials said they will continue to buy tickets until there’s a winner.
If any of the 50,000 tickets ends up being the lucky ducat, the prize will be split evenly among Raising Cane’s employees, Sartini said.
Raising Cane’s executives said inflationary pain at the gas pumps and rising prices on grocery store shelves helped to inspire the idea.
“Times are tough out there,” Raising Cane’s CEO AJ Kumaran told CNN on Tuesday. “Things aren’t exactly easy these days, so when we saw there is a chance to not only have a little fun, but maybe win a little extra cash for our people, we wanted to do it.”
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