It’s the luckiest lottery vending machine in Manhattan.
A Rockefeller Center security guard bought a scratch-off ticket that turned out to be a $3 million winner from the machine at Pronto Pizza on West 48th Street near Sixth Avenue — the second million-dollar ticket it has dispensed since 2009.
“Customers say it’s a lucky place,” said eatery cashier Arun Mohammed, 57, adding that dreamers specifically come in to purchase scratch-offs after hearing of the jackpot payouts.
Security guard Rafik Sulaiman, 59, a dad of three and granddad of five, was recently on a coffee break when he entered Pronto to buy a meal and a scratch-off.
He bought the machine’s last $10 “King’s Ransom” ticket, scratched the numbers and got the lucrative shock of his life.
“There were no other tickets available’’ in the machine, Sulaiman marveled at a press conference Thursday.
He opted to take a $1.5 million lump-sum payout, instead of an annuitized $3 million.
Sulaiman was among eight winners introduced by the New York Lottery who recently raked in a total of $13.5 million in scratch-off and Powerball winnings, officials said.
Other winners included stay-at-home mom Geraldine Pollice of Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, who said it was a clerk in a smoke shop who convinced her to buy the $20 “Maximum Millions” scratch-off ticket that won her $5 million.
Pollice, 45, said that after discovering she had won, she ran back to tell the clerk and he replied, “See, I told you so!”