A St. Louis man is a quarter-of-a-million dollars richer after collecting a second-tier Mega Millions prize from the Missouri Lottery.

Douglas Trester, a 45-year-old steel worker, stated in a news release that he was “excited but nervous” when he checked his ticket at Dirt Cheap Cigarettes and Beer, 4359 Telegraph Road in Oakville, for the Mega Millions drawing on Aug. 20.

“I put the card in the scanner, and it popped up that I won,” Trester recalled in the release. “It was kind of surprising.”

After the initial “35 to 40 seconds” of shock subsided, the first-time Lottery winner shared the news with his family.

“I went out to see my folks,” he added. “They were pretty excited.”

Trester explained that although he didn’t use Quick Pick to select the winning five white-ball numbers drawn last month, he does partly credit Quick Pick for the win.

“I used to get Quick Picks, but I got tired of doing Quick Picks,” he explained. “So, I just started using the numbers from the last Quick Pick I ever did. I wrote them down on a card and kept using those.”

It was the Quick Pick combination he received months ago — 13, 28, 35, 38, 41 — and kept using that made him a winner, according to the release.

After his recent win, he declared those numbers would be retired. However, his method will continue.

“I’ll change up that line, but I’ll play other ones,” he noted.

As for plans for the windfall, other than purchasing a new cell phone, he is still weighing his options.

“It’s pretty exciting,” he concluded.

Mega Millions is a multi-lottery game that features jackpots starting at $12 million. To date, the largest Mega Millions jackpot prize claimed is $656 million — a prize split by three ticketholders in Illinois, Kansas and Maryland.