Seven clerks from Phillips 66 in Montrose, Colo., won $2.5 million in last weekend’s lotto drawing.

 

The Phillips 66 clerks’ ticket was one of two to hit the $5.1 million Lotto jackpot. The workers collected their checks Monday after a customer at their c-store flew them by helicopter to the Lottery’s Pueblo headquarters. Each clerk will receive $200,000 before taxes.

 

“This is going to help a lot of people,” the group’s spokeswoman Janet Black, who noted that several of the store’s employees have seriously ill spouses, told the Denver Channel 7 News. “Everyone here struggles and they deserve it.”

 

Black started collecting $2 from each of her coworkers six weeks ago, after a dream inspired her to begin the pool. Before their big win on Saturday, the group had one won just $4 on its purchases, made at the Phillips 66 where they all work.

 

Since the lotto began in the state in 1989, 370 people have become millionaires. The probability of winning the Lotto jackpot is 1 in 5,245,786.