ALBION — Albion Corner Store could add gift shop to its name.

A lottery ticket recently bought at the Albion Corner Store and given as a birthday present turned out to be a $250,000 winner.

Cathy Varney, owner of the market, said she didn’t know who received the $10 Money Bag Multiplier as a gift, but she said she did know who bought the scratch-off ticket.

Varney said on Monday morning that she’d check with the buyer to see about being interviewed but as of deadline Monday, the gift-giver hadn’t called.

The odds of winning $250,000 — the maximum winning amount of the ticket — is 1 in 180,000, according to the Maine State Lottery website.

It turned out the person celebrating a birthday wasn’t the only winner.

Varney said the store, at the intersection of China, Winslow, Benton and Unity roads, also got a prize for selling the winning ticket.

She said she wasn’t sure of the amount. The store’s employees split the prize.

“They were pretty happy,” she said.

Varney said the ticket was the first such big winner sold at the store in the two years she has owned it.

But she said Lakeside Country Store in China, which she also owns, sold a $100,000 winning ticket about a decade ago.

Since 1974, the Maine State Lottery has awarded more than $2.2 billion in prizes, according to its website. In 2011, the lottery paid $14 million in commissions and bonuses to about 1,300 lottery retail agents, according to the same site.

Beth Staples — 861-9252

[email protected]