S.I. Liquor Store Owner Excited About Selling $86 Million 'Mega' Ticket To Mystery Winner
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- A mystery Mega Millions winner has won more than $80 million on Staten Island and the owner of the store that sold the winning ticket may be just as ecstatic.
It was a happy day for Tony Lau, the owner of Empire Wine and Liquor on Richmond Hill Road, which sold the winning Mega Millions lottery ticket worth $86 million.
"It was so funny, my wife call me and say 'Your liquor store win the first prize, $86 million and you the store gets $10,000 for selling the jackpot winner," Lau told CBS 2's Cindy Hsu. "[I'm] so happy."
There's only one winning ticket and the numbers were drawn Tuesday night and word is slowly getting around Staten Island that the lucky ticket came from Lau's store.
"Oh it's wonderful, it's wonderful. I'm excited," Elaine Martino said.
"Well it wasn't me and that's a shame, but God bless him," said Anthony Papeo.
While the Mega jackpot is nothing close to the record breaker of more than $650 million back in March, there's still a lot of excitement that the winner might live in the neighborhood.
"That's nice, that's nice -- it's probably somebody local, so that's good," said Kenny Halpin.
If you haven't checked your tickets yet, the winning numbers are 3, 4, 24, 36, 52 and the Mega Ball is 45.
Even if you didn't win the jackpot, a good habit is to immediately sign the back when you buy a lottery ticket. That's because when you do win that big jackpot, whoever has their signature on the back and can present a photo ID gets to claim the prize.
Lau said he can't wait to meet the winner.
If the winner decides to take the lump sum, he or she will bring home $65.3 million before taxes.
