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The Mega Millions jackpot soared to a record-shattering $500 million jackpot for tomorrow night’s drawing — sending New Yorkers rushing to newsstands and bodegas to buy their shot at financial freedom for life.
A lone winning ticket would bring home a mind-boggling $237,047,700 after taxes in New York — and that amount will likely increase through heavy nationwide sales before the numbers are drawn.
The prospects of nine-figure wealth had dreamers pulling out all their superstitious stops.
“I go to my local church and take my cards out with my numbers on them and put them in front of a candle and say some prayers to St. Matthew, the patron saint of money,” said Desmaunda Bartlett, 47, a secretary from Flatbush who bought tickets on Montague Street in Brooklyn yesterday.
“Oh honey! I’m gonna win, and St. Matty’s gonna make sure of that!” she gushed.
Upper East Sider Joe Junas, 34, said he’s stopping at 30 stores to buy 30 single Quick Pick tickets — a strategy that he believes boosts his odds of winning the Big Kahuna.
“I hear the winner is always someone who takes a dollar quick pick somewhere instead of playing $20 in the same place,” said Junas, who works in billing at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, where he also takes part in an office pool.
“It’s half a billion! So my strategy is special this time. I’m increasing my chances any way I can,” he said while buying a ticket at Time Out, a bodega at Third Avenue and East 88th Street.
Junas said winning would make him so paranoid that he’d hire security to guard his kids against kidnappers before packing up the family and moving to Hawaii.
Vendors were also seeing green yesterday — excited by the boost in sales, which they predicted would increase up until the purchase deadline at 10:45 tomorrow night.
“There’s a lot of excitement. We have new customers coming in who don’t even know how to play lotto but they see $500 million and they want to start,” said Queens resident Dee Patel, working at Lucky Lotto at 96th Street at Amsterdam Avenue on the Upper West Side. “We’re showing them how to play. We have so many nice customers so we want one of ours to win.”
Jay Shah, of News and Smoke Hut at Lexington Avenue and East 89th Street, said “it’s a little higher than normal but the big crowds won’t come until [today] and Friday. Last time, when it was $290 million, we had lines out the door. I even played $10.”
At Time Out, clerk Nazrul Bhuiya, 31, said the store was twice as busy as usual yesterday.
“Over 150 people came in so far. One guy bought $100 worth of tickets,” he marveled.
Nancy Spector, a retired flight attendant from the Upper East Side, had a secret formula for picking a winner.
“I do quick pick and I take the birthday of someone famous who is lucky. I can’t tell you who, but she’s very lucky. Then I look around for the first number I see whether it’s on a house or a license plate. And sometimes I take it from the serial numbers on dollar bills,” said Spector, who plans to buy $20 worth of tickets by the deadline and has dreams of a Park Avenue penthouse overlooking Central Park and annual Austrian ski trips.
Manhattan postal worker Simone McCrorey, 41, said hitting the jackpot would mean instant retirement.
“First I’d quit! I’d buy a one-family house so I can get away from my mother-in-law! I’d get a big lot and build a house with all the amenities — a bowling alley, pool, theater,” she said.
“I bought three tickets already yesterday. Then I found this dollar bill on the street and thought ‘This might be my lucky day!’ so I’m playing that dollar.”
Susan Allen, 41, of Brooklyn Heights dropped $5 on quick picks.
“I’d pay off my credit cards and mortgage. Normally I don’t play but this amount drew me in. And I’d travel the world and I’d also save.”
Allen said she’d be happy to share some of the loot with relatives — unless they got too greedy.
In that case, she said, “I wouldn’t answer the phone.”
Maintenance worker Larry Puleshi, 40, of Queens, bought 60 tickets for himself and his coworkers — and had harsh words for New Jersey lottery louse Americo Lopes, who tried to stiff his co-workers after hitting a $38.5 million jackpot before a jury ordered him to pay up this month.
“I would never do that! That’s so bad! Not me! We make photo-copies and everyone will have a copy of the tickets. We all deserve it,” Puleshi said.
Even one of New York’s newest lottery millionaires said he’d be back in action for tomorrow night’s drawing.
“I’m going to still keep playing,” said James Janowsky as he picked up his ceremonial big check for $7,500,000 yesterday at the Queens Botanical Garden, where the State Lottery introduced five new millionaires from previous drawings. “I may change the numbers that I won on, but I plan on still playing.”
Additional reporting by