All you need is a dollar and a dream – and to buy your lottery ticket in Queens.
Five stores in Queens were among the Top 10 to dole out the largest amounts of cash to bettors who bought lottery tickets and scratch-off cards in the city over the past three years, officials said.
Taking the top spot as the luckiest location in the city to buy tickets is The Magazine Store on 31st Street in Astoria.
“Maybe people from all over the city will come to my store to buy tickets now that they’ve heard about us,” said owner Bitin Mehta, 60. “We are a very lucky store.”
The shop – which doled out 56 prizes between January 2005 and December 2007 – paid winners an estimated total of $105.2 million.
Catapulting The Magazine Store to first place was Gilberto Bueno, who won $105 million in a Mega Millions drawing in April 2007.
“I would encourage others to come to my store and buy a Mega Millions ticket,” Mehta said.
A shop owner typically nets a $10,000 bonus from the New York State Lottery for selling a winning Mega Millions ticket.
In second place was another shop in the neighborhood: Astoria Smoke Shop and Convenience on 30th Avenue.
The shop boasted 21 prizes totaling an estimated $31 million.
Not far behind in third place is Queens Mini Market on Queens Boulevard in Sunnyside, which sold 35 tickets with cash prizes totaling $26 million.
“The odds of winning any of these games are purely random, but sometimes we see hot spots,” said New York Lottery spokesman John Charlson.
“Players are doing pretty well in Queens, but they are also doing well in many other places in the city.”
The list of the city’s luckiest stores takes into account individual prizes worth at least $600 – the limit at which the state lottery requires winners to visit a regional claim center in order to retrieve their prize.
The state’s random lottery drawing games include Mega Millions, Lotto, Numbers, Take 5 and Win 4.
The list also takes into account the 35 to 50 scratch-off games that are on the market at any given time.
The other two stores on the list from Queens are Shri Hari Khrpa on Main Street in Flushing, which placed fifth with 12 prizes worth $14 million.
Orion NY, located on Union Street in Flushing, is 10th with 40 prizes totaling $8.7 million.
The Bronx and Brooklyn each had two stores on the list. The only store from Manhattan to crack the Top 10 was Rudra, on 92nd Street and Broadway.
No stores from Staten Island made the list.