Here Are Brooklyn’s “Mega Millions” Alumni – Will You Be Joining Them?
Brooklynites are heading to their local bodegas or liquor stores to pick up a Mega Millions ticket on Tuesday – in hopes of winning the $654 million jackpot — even though the odds are 1 in about 302,575,350 as of the time of publishing.
This week’s jackpot is $2 million shy of the New York Lottery’s largest payout under the Mega Millions arm. Since New York State joined the multi-state lottery game in 2002, only three people from Brooklyn have been lucky enough to guess the six random numbers and collect the winnings.
In its inaugural year, a $68 million winning ticket purchased in Brooklyn went unclaimed.
The following year, two winning tickets surfaced in Brooklyn. One—worth $46 million—again went unclaimed in early spring. Before that Phin Suy, a Cambodian immigrant and Central Park gardener walked away with a $128 million pot in February 2013. Suy picked up the winning ticket at a Brighton Beach cigar shop and newsstand.
The borough’s winning streak would end until 2010 when two winners— one from Bay Ridge and the other from East New York— claimed winnings.
Mary Shammas picked up $64 million on May 25, 2010, the Post reported. The then 73-year-old lived in Bay Ridge and picked up her ticket at Lucky Lotto on 3rd Avenue and 72nd Street.
Shammas at the time was suffering from lung cancer. The great grand-mother doled out the majority of the winnings to her children and a nephew. In fact, the lotto earnings were designated as Mary Shammas and Family. Shammas died January 2012.
Garina Fearon, 42, of East New York won $55 million ($22,723,873 after taxes) on September 17, 2010, when she purchased what she thought was a PowerBall ticket at a bodega on Sutter Ave. Fearon was a New York City Corrections officer at Rikers Island and realized she had the winning ticket while waiting for the bus on her way home from the jail.
The Jamaican native has since become quite the real estate mogul with several properties in Queens, one in New Jersey, a 6-family apartment building in Bushwick and a 3-family unit in East Flatbush purchased earlier this summer.
In 2012, the biggest jackpot to date went to three players, one person each from Kansas, Maryland, and Illinois who shared a jackpot of $656 million.
The drawing will be announced at 11:00 pm on Tuesday. If there are no winners this round, the next Mega Millions pot could be the biggest in history.
