$140 Raffle Ticket Wins Man A $1 Million Painting
PITTSBURGH (NewsRadio 1020 KDKA) - No one around the Pittsburgh area won the Mega Millions, but one Wexford man won a raffle for a valuable painting after only spending $140 for a ticket.
Jeffery Gonano was one of 50,000 people with a raffle ticket and after his number was picked, he is now the owner of a Pablo Picasso painting entitled "Man with Opera Hat."
The painting has an estimated value of $1 million.
Gonano joined KDKA Radio's Larry Richert to talk about winning the raffle.
"I don't really know. I just saw it on the news and I thought it was interesting," Gonano said about buying a ticket. He figured his odds weren't that bad.
Gonano says he got a call while at work yesterday telling him he had won the painting. He says he couldn't believe he won.
Gonano is a former football player and wrestler and has just started getting into buying pieces of art.
"I actually bought a couple pieces of art for my house and then I saw [the painting] and I thought, 'That would be nice to have too,'" Gonano said.
He isn't sure what he is going to do with the painting yet.
"If I could, I'd try to hold on to it for now, let the value go up over time," he said. He isn't sure about what taxes he will have to pay, if any.
The piece dates back to 1914 and the money raised in the raffle will go toward preserving the biblical city of Tyre, Lebanon.
