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Every store that sells a Mega Millions ticket lands a $10,000 bonus from the lottery regardless of the size of the jackpot.)
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“Do I think this is a lucky store?” asks Iqbal Khan, the soft-spoken store clerk who sold Shammas the winning ticket. So far, the biggest prize reaped by these cashed-in tickets is $600. The 72 Lucky Lotto store - the newest big-bucks bodega - looks the same as any other, save for a banner in the window that now proudly declares, “Mega Millions Jackpot Was Won Here.” Near the register sits a clear glass bowl with winning Pick Four and scratch-off tickets taped to it. (The biggest jackpot - $168 million - was sold by the Fordham Convenience and Grocery in The Bronx last August.) And the Bay Ridge bodega that sold Shammas her golden ticket has now joined a prestigious pantheon of the luckiest stores in the city.Īcross the five boroughs, 59 small grocery stores have sold lottery tickets worth $1 million or more in the past year and a half. “I got off the bus and decided to buy a lottery ticket for that night’s Mega Millions drawing,” says the mother of four.Ī few hours later, Shammas won a whopping $64 million - the third-biggest lottery windfall in New York City in the past 18 months. The former Wall Street receptionist, who describes herself as “semi-superstitious,” decided it was a sign she simply couldn’t ignore - so she stopped at the 72 Lucky Lotto in Bay Ridge. Mary Shammas, 73, was on the way home from a doctor’s appointment on the morning of May 25 when her left palm started to itch.