Having one of the family cars stolen turned out to be the luckiest break of his life.
A Brooklyn teen who was riding with his mom and uncle to claim their stolen car from an impound lot bought a lottery ticket when they stopped for gas that will pay him $1,000 a week for the rest of his life.
“We went to go pick up the car and stopped here for some gas,” 18-year-old Rob Salo, 18, said this morning at Coney Island Convenience on Coney Island Avenue in Brooklyn, where he plunked down 42 for the scratch-off ticket on May 14.
“When I scratched it, it was just ridiculous. I didn’t believe it at first. I thought it was a fake ticket,” said Salo, who will graduate from James Madison High School later this month.
“I had to ask them to pull over because I couldn’t drive and show them something like that. It was just a Kodak moment,” said Salo, whose last day of school was today.
“You’re in a dream. Honestly you don’t know if it’s real or not in the moment. I couldn’t go to sleep at all. I didn’t know if I was hungry, I didn’t know if I was sleepy, I didn’t know anything at that point.”
As a top prize winner in the Win $1,000 A Week For Life scratch-off game, the lucky Sheepshead Bay resident will get $52,000 a year – $32,398 after taxes – every year for the rest of his life.
“You keep livin’, we’ll keep payin’, ” lottery spokeswoman Christy Calicchia said, repeating the game’s slogan.
Salo – who rarely plays the lottery but beat the 1 in 7,896,000.00 odds with his single ticket – said he plans to splurge on a new BMW and pay for his college education.