Masontown man wins $1M lottery prize

Sep 11, 2026 By Garrett Neese 2 min read

In July, Tony Corso made a run to Walmart to pick up his wife’s medication for her recent heart attack.

He passed a Pennsylvania Lottery machine on his way out.

On a whim, the Masontown resident bought $20 in tickets, figuring historically “there’s a lot of winners” at the South Union Township location.

Now there’s one more.

At a podium right next to that machine, the Pennsylvania Lottery presented Corso, 65, with a commemorative check Thursday for the $1 million he won in the Saturday, July 25, Powerball drawing.

Checking his tickets Sunday morning, Tony had been left wondering if he’d even break even. Then he got one that prompted the message, “See clerk.” He threw it back on the kitchen island for Monday.

After seeing an announcement someone had won a $1 million prize at the Walmart, Tony’s wife, Tracey, asked him if he’d checked the numbers yet. He hadn’t.

“I said, ‘Let’s go,'” she said. “I already had one heart attack, and I can’t breathe.”

They went inside, where Tracey read the numbers off the ticket and Tony checked them against the winning numbers on the state Lottery website.

The first one matched.

So did the second.

“Third number, I said, ‘No way,'” Tony said. “Fourth number comes along, she said, ‘You better not be messing with me.'”

He wasn’t. In the end, Tony matched all five numbers — and was off by only one digit on the red Powerball number, which would have netted the $600 million jackpot.

“I was gasping for air, of course,” Tracey said. “I needed oxygen, and it was serious.”

“We realized we won a million dollars at that time,” Tony said.

Since it wasn’t a jackpot, the prize is given out as a lump sum.

Tony recently retired from running Tony’s Tires, a small tire business in Masontown. Tracey is now retiring as well.

They haven’t made any big plans yet, but they plan to spend more time traveling and enjoying their golden years.

“It’s great knowing that if you need anything, I don’t have to worry about where the money will come from,” Tony said.