A decision to start selling lottery tickets again at his package liquor store on St. Michael's Drive could be one of the best that Richard Anaya ever made.

On July 5 — about three months after he resumed lottery sales again after a 10-year hiatus — the 64-year-old owner of the Liquid Company won a $185,000 prize on a Roadrunner Cash game ticket he bought from his own store.

"I'm a lucky leprechaun," Anaya, a former Santa Fe County commissioner, said Wednesday. "It was really good fortune. It was so unbelievable."

The $1 ticket matched all five numbers (4, 9, 16, 28 and 29) in the Roadrunner Cash drawing, which brought him the top prize in the progressive jackpot game.

According to a New Mexico Lottery news release, Anaya checked his ticket the day after the drawing and burst in on his sleeping wife to say, "Baby, be calm, don't worry. It's something good." But Anaya didn't claim his prize until Monday, when he received a check for his after-tax winnings of $127,650.

Anaya said he will use the money to pay off most of his home loan and some medical bills.

Lottery spokeswoman Linda Hamlin said Anaya's store will also receive a wire transfer for $1,000 as a bonus for selling a top-prize-winning ticket in the Roadrunner Cash game.

Hamlin said the game is a New Mexico-only daily lotto drawing that starts with a $20,000 prize, which increases continuously until somebody wins. Players can pick their own five numbers or have them generated by a computer.

Anaya — who said he buys about $20 worth of lottery tickets every day — said he picked his own numbers for the winning ticket.

"I just pick at random," Anaya said. "Whatever comes to mind, sometimes I even use fortune cookie numbers. I quit using birthday numbers because they never hit."

Hamlin said there are no rules prohibiting lottery retailers from playing lottery games.

This is the second big prize winner sold by the Liquid Company since it began vending lottery tickets in April, Hamlin said. On the second day the business resumed lottery sales, the store sold a Powerball ticket worth $200,000. However, Hamlin said no one ever came forward to claim that prize, and the 90-day deadline for doing so has passed.

Contact Phaedra Haywood at 986-3068 or phaywood@sfnewmexican.com.