A supermarket merchandiser is bringing home the bacon.
Flatbush single mom Margaret Douglas, 51, recently won the New York Lottery’s $10,000 A Week for Life scratch-off game, a guaranteed $10 million minimum prize. She is among six lucky Lottery winners who were presented with ceremonial prize checks worth a total of $14 million at the Lottery Customer Service Center in Manhattan on Wednesday.
“It was just my lucky day, so thank God for that,” she said at the ceremony. “My dream came true. It’s a good feeling.”
Douglas purchased the ticket on her coffee break, and scratched her way to the winning numbers before she had finished her cup of Joe.
“My heart was going thump, thump, thump, thump, thump,” she said.
The St. Vincent native chose to receive the money as a single lump sum totaling $7,791,512, netting $4,854,424.
Now a multi-millionaire, Douglas said she plans on buying a new home and “cutting back on my hours and relaxing a little more.”
Restaurant employee Julio Estrella, 45, won a $1 million lottery scratch-off prize with a Monopoly Jackpot ticket. Estrella usually buys one ticket, but when he was handed two accidentally, he decided to buy them both. It was a happy coincidence: That second ticket was the winning one.
“When I saw the jackpot, I jumped back and got crazy — it’s $1 million,” he said on Wednesday. “I call my friend, and then I enjoy and take my day off.”
Estrella will receive his cash in a single payment of $485,971, which he said will go towards a new home for his family.
Other winners include 71-year-old Otto Royal of Bedford-Stuyvesant, a retired hospital housekeeper who scratched off his Lottery ticket while enjoying a cup of coffee. He won $1,000 a week for life, but will take his winnings as a one-time payment of $776, 591 (net $483,847).
“I couldn’t believe my eyes,” Royal said on Wednesday. “I had to go next door to my next door neighbor and she said ‘you won.’”
Next he’s going to “relax” and figure out his next move. But the lucky grandfather of three, who won $37,000 in the Lottery over 10 years ago, does know one thing he’d like to do: Take his grandchildren to Disney World in Florida with his earnings.
A third winner from Brooklyn, IT professional Terry Dulan of Clinton Hill, 49, was “shocked” to discover that he had won $1 million in the Feb. 12 Powerball drawing with one of his three sets of Quick Pick numbers. He will take his prize in a single payment totaling $623,040.
Dulan said he will use the money to pay bills and take his family on a vacation, according to the press release.
Also at the ceremony were deli workers Angel Dutan of East Elmhurst and Marcial Martinez of the Bronx, who pooled their money together to buy a Powerball ticket for the Feb. 22 drawing. One of their sets matched the first five numbers drawn. The co-workers will split their $1 million second prize evenly, and each will receive a one-time payment of $500,000, with a net of $305,900.
“We play together,” Martinez said Wednesday. “We are persistent and figure our chances are better if we play together.”