A customary stop at his local store to pick up his weekly Lottery tickets resulted in a $250,000 second place Mega Millions prize for Rafael Carrero of the Bronx. The recently retired mail handler for the United States Postal Service claimed his prize at the Lottery’s New York City Customer Service Center this morning.
Carrero is the third of nine $250,000 prizes sold in New York to be claimed following the March 22nd Mega Millions drawing.
“I stopped into the store to buy my weekly numbers and used my normal combination of family birthdays. When I checked my numbers after the drawing I was shocked to see I matched five numbers. I have never won this much before so this all very exciting.” Carrero purchased his lucky ticket at Palace Enterprises on Castle Hill in the Bronx.
Carrero plans to use his winnings to finish paying off his mortgage and save the rest for a rainy day. “I don’t know exactly how I’ll spend all of it, but it’s nice to know I’ll have some money set aside when I need it.”
Thirty-two-year-old Aja Certain from Manhattan also claimed her $250,000 prize from the March 22nd Mega Millions drawing today in New York City. Certain, who works in the leasing department for a real estate company, purchased her Mega Millions tickets in anticipation of hitting the jackpot. “I normally buy my tickets when the jackpot gets really high. I scanned my tickets and when the ticket checker said I had a $250,000 winner I had to scan it again because I thought it must have been broken,” she joked.
Certain purchased her lucky ticket at Jericho Wines & Liquors on Lakeville Road in New Hyde Park, Nassau County.
“Winning $250,000 is really exciting and I have all sorts of plans for the money, but I do plan to hit the big jackpot one of these days. Maybe the next drawing will be my lucky one.”
Five other second-place winning tickets for the March 22nd Mega Millions drawing have yet to be claimed. The other tickets, worth $250,000 each, were purchased at:
• Omni Fuel/Mobil, 101 Hempstead Tpke, Elmont, Nassau County
• Mousa Mart, 2436 Route 53, Hopewell Junction, Dutchess County
• Wegmans, 3195 Monroe Avenue, Rochester, Monroe County
• Inserra Shop Rite, 243 Route 59, West Nyack, Rockland County
• B&B News, 700 3rd Avenue and 43rd Street, Manhattan
The New York Lottery continues to be North America’s largest and most profitable Lottery, earning more than $39.3 billion in education support statewide since its founding over 40 years ago. The Lottery contributed nearly $2.67 billion in fiscal year 2009-2010 to help support education in New York State, which was over 12 percent of total state education funding to local school districts.
Lottery revenue is distributed to local school districts by the same statutory formula used to distribute other state aid to education. It takes into account both a school district’s size and its income level; larger, lower-income school districts receive proportionately larger shares of Lottery school funding.
