Suffolk mother, daughter to share $7M Golden Ticket lottery jackpot

A Middle Island woman who bought some lottery tickets while killing time waiting for a hair appointment is now a millionaire.

Marilyn Looney, 82, will share the $7 million Golden Ticket jackpot with her daughter, New York Lottery officials said Tuesday.

"My hairdresser was really busy so I took a walk," Looney, 82, said in a statement. She bought the winning ticket at the Mili Cards & Smoke shop on Middle Country Road in Selden.

Looney said that with sun glare on the screen she couldn't read the scanned scratch-off ticket. The clerk "jumped 5 feet in the air" when he rescanned it.

From the hairdresser's, Looney, a former Estée Lauder employee, called her daughter, Carol Prevete, 50, a bookkeeper from Selden with whom she has a history of pooling money and splitting lottery winnings.

Each will now receive a onetime net payment of $2,316,300, the lottery said.

Officials said Looney plans to buy a home to share with her daughter and family, and Prevete is looking forward to paying off her mortgage and being "debt free."