Massapequa Park man collects on $4 million Mega Millions second prize ticket

A Massapequa Park man collected on one of two second-place winning tickets sold at a Seaford card shop for the April 15 drawing of Mega Millions, taking home a lump sum of $2,604,001, the New York State Gaming Commission said.

Officials said William Weiss received the lump-sum payment Friday for the $4 million second-place winning ticket purchased at Manya Card and Gifts, located at 1250C Hicksville Rd., Seaford. The shop also sold a $2 million second-place winner for the drawing.

The second winner apparently remains unknown.

In April, Gaming Commission spokesman Brad Maione told Newsday in an email statement: "It is not uncommon for players to purchase the same numbers more than once for a draw," but also said it was unclear whether the two winning tickets were purchased by one or more buyers.

Winners have a year from the draw date to claim their prizes.

The winning numbers for the April 15 drawing were 6, 10, 13, 24 and 63 — with a Mega Ball of 2.

Both winning tickets had the winning field numbers, but not the correct Mega Ball.

The Gaming Commission said Weiss was able to quadruple his winnings thanks to the game multiplier, which was assigned to each play at the time of purchase. The normal second-place winning ticket is worth $1 million. But those multipliers can make the prize worth double, triple, quadruple, five times or even 10 times the original amount.

There was no grand-prize winner in the draw, which had a $96 million jackpot.

Manya general manager Rocky Patel told Newsday in April he was "shocked" to learn his store had sold not one second-place winner in the draw, but two.

"We used to kid around [saying], ‘This is a lucky store, but now we prove it,’ ” he said then.

Though Maione did not immediately respond to inquiries Monday about the status of the other second-place winning ticket, he told Newsday in April: "For games with a bonus ball, like Mega Millions, Powerball and Cash4Life, players will play the same base numbers and then select a different bonus number for each play. This results in multiple second tier wins on the same ticket or different tickets at the same location — usually the same player."

In 2023, Maione told Newsday, a Cash4Life winner hit the draw jackpot, as well as three second-tier prizes.

Newsday's Tiffany Cusaac-Smith contributed to this story.

By John Valenti

john.valenti@newsday.com

John Valenti, a reporter at Newsday since 1981, has been honored nationally by the Associated Press and Society of the Silurians for investigative, enterprise and breaking news reporting, as well as column writing, and is the author of “Swee'pea,” a book about former New York playground basketball star Lloyd Daniels. Valenti is featured in the Emmy Award-winning ESPN 30-for-30 film “Big Shot.”