Mega Millions players go for long shot

It was a Friday frenzy.

Long Islanders joined dreamers across the nation, buying tickets for the record-breaking, history-making $640 million Mega Millions jackpot at a frantic pace.

On a day when the jackpot went up $100 million from $540 million -- already a U.S. lottery record -- they flooded retailers for their one in 176 million shot.

By Friday evening, tickets in New York were selling at a rate of $4 million per hour, New York Lottery spokeswoman Carolyn Hapeman said. Earlier in the day, the pace was $1.5 million per hour, and in the midafternoon it was $3 million per hour, Hapeman said.

When the ticket-buying flurry ended the winning numbers were revealed: 2-4-23-38-46, and megaball 23.

The afternoon rush hour never ended at the Melville 7-Eleven on Route 110 and Ruland Road, where cars were queued on the street for parking as customers inside lined up 10 deep or so for tickets despite two cashiers at the lottery machines.

Until 7:15 p.m., Rocky DePaul and 10-year-old daughter Nikki of Lake Grove were lottery novices. DePaul said he didn't even know how the game worked when he stood in line and asked for $10 worth of numbers.

DePaul, fresh from attending a wedding, said he felt the pressure to join the Mega madness after he learned about it from friends close and far: "I've had people text me from Oklahoma, asking me, 'Did you get your ticket?' Tickets for what?"

The absurd odds didn't stop Long Islanders like DePaul, driven by hope and "why not" thinking, from buying tickets right up to the 10:45 p.m. deadline.

Bruce Torff, a Hofstra University psychology professor who is also a statistics buff, said he and his statistician friends do not buy lottery tickets, but "we've been having a laugh over this all this week."

Torff said of the 176 million odds, it's "a darn big number" and "a hard number to understand."

He pointed out that counting back 176 million seconds would put us in the year 2006. And that 176 million days ago would put us back 482,192 years, well before the emergence of homo sapiens.

Still, Torff said of players, "let them have their fun."

Lisa Culen, 48, of Wantagh, said there's just one number she's concerned with -- one, as in "someone is going to end up being that one" who wins. And that person has "the same odds I have."

She and her three brothers and a sister -- all Wantagh residents -- pooled $15 each to play the same lottery numbers that her late father used to play.

"It is the possibility that [Friday] at 11 p.m. you win half a billion dollars," said Culen, who is not a regular lottery player.

Also, it's a way to keep "the family spirit alive," she said, having visited her siblings Thursday to collect the money. All but one of the siblings planned to watch the drawing together.

It's "something to talk about, something fun and probably to joke about Saturday when we don't win," said Culen, who works with medical students for New York Institute of Technology's New York College of Osteopathic Medicine in Old Westbury.

Long Islanders have been among dreamers in 42 states flocking to buy tickets.

After Tuesday's drawing, when no winning tickets were sold, the jackpot bumped three times from $363 million, all the way up to $640 million. "Bumps" in large jackpot games are common because of excessive ticket sales, lottery officials say.

The cash option payout for a single winner is $462 million; or the winner could choose to take 26 annual payments of about $24.6 million, lottery officials said. And then there are the taxes -- 25 percent federal, 8.82 percent New York State and local, if applicable.

An individual winner on Long Island would get roughly $304 million after taxes are withheld, said Jason Kurland, an attorney who has had major lottery winners as clients.