Winning $1M Mega Millions ticket sold at West Babylon store, NY Lottery says
Mega Millions in Westbury, on March 16, 2018. Credit: Howard Schnapp
Some lucky ticket holder has 1 million reasons to celebrate, after scoring the second-place prize in the latest Mega Millions drawing Tuesday night with a ticket purchased at a card store in West Babylon.
The $1 million prize had not yet been claimed as of Wednesday evening, according to an employee at the store, West Babylon Cards & Gifts.
"I don't know yet who is that person," Vick Panchal said earlier Wednesday. "A couple of guys came in the morning and they were joking, 'Hey, we saw someone won a million dollars on the news.' But no one has come, not yet. I'm waiting for whoever it is, to see."
Panchal said he did not know when the winning ticket was sold at the store, located at 741 Sunrise Hwy. He said the store was waiting for congratulatory signs to be delivered so the big news could be acknowledged in the front window.
Mega Millions is offered in 45 states as well as in the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The jackpot prize for the Tuesday night drawing was $61 million with winning white ball numbers of 7, 38, 50, 52, 69 and a gold Mega Ball selection of 21, according to the New York Lottery.
The odds of hitting all five white balls plus the gold Mega Ball are 1 in 302.5 million, according to the lottery website. No one hit all the numbers.
The odds of hitting the second prize — which is connecting on all five white balls, numbered 1 to 70, but not the gold Mega Ball, numbered 1 to 25 — is still a staggering 1 in 12,607,306.
Just one ticket hit that second prize: The one sold in West Babylon.
Panchal said he did not know what the incorrect Mega Ball selection was on the second-prize winner, or how close that ticket holder came to hitting the Mega jackpot. He also did not know if the ticket was a quick-pick selection or included numbers selected by the player who bought the ticket.
Winners have one year to claim their prize before a winning ticket becomes void.
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.”
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