Mega Millions second-place $1M winners in NY include ticket sold in Locust Valley
The Conoco Quick Mart in Locust Valley where a $1 million Mega Millions ticket was sold for Tuesday's drawing. Credit: Dawn McCormick
Oh, so close.
Although the winning jackpot ticket in Tuesday night's $1.13 billion Mega Millions drawing was sold in New Jersey, two second-place winning tickets were sold in New York — one of them at a Conoco gas station on Forest Avenue in Locust Valley, lottery officials said.
That ticket is worth a cool $1 million, before taxes.
The winning numbers drawn Tuesday night were 7, 11, 22, 29, 38 — with a Mega Ball of 4.
The jackpot ticket, reportedly sold at a liquor store on Route 66 in Neptune Township in Monmouth County, has a cash prize option estimated to be $537.5 million — though it could be more once the final ticket sales totals are calculated, Mega Millions officials said Wednesday.
The two New York tickets matched all the numbers except for the Mega Ball. One of those tickets, sold in Newburgh, was bought with the Mega multiplier option, making it worth $2 million before taxes. The ticket sold in Locust Valley was not bought with the option.
Phone calls to the gas station went unanswered on Wednesday.
Before the winning draw Tuesday night no one had won Mega Millions since Dec. 8, when two California winners split a $395 million jackpot that had a cash option of $189 million.
The odds of winning the jackpot prize in Mega are 1 in 302,575,350, according to officials.
Though the $1.13 billion Tuesday night jackpot was earth-shattering, the record jackpot was drawn on Aug. 8 — when one winning ticket sold in Florida landed a pool that officials said weighed in at $1.602 billion.
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.”
