Local stores reported a spike in sales between Tuesday and Friday of last week as no Mega Millions winner was crowned.
The odds of winning are less than 1 in 300 million. But, with a jackpot that has grown to $1.6 billion, even sensible parents cannot help but fantasize.
For nearly two weeks, the Hudson Valley has been in a frenzy, along with the rest of the country, over a Mega Millions jackpot that has grown by more than a billion dollars in the last 10 days. The drawing on Tuesday is for the largest jackpot in U.S. history. A single winner would receive $1.6 billion paid out over several years, or $905 million immediately in cash.
The roughly $550 possible prize for the Oct. 12 drawing was enough to inspire many residents who would not normally buy tickets to indulge. And though three drawings have come and gone without a winner since, area shop owners and managers say the ballooning jackpot has only intensified the demand to take a chance at winning life-changing money.
Many residents say a jackpot would also change the lives of those around them.
Kevin Borchardt, the store manager of the Stewart’s Shops location on Vassar Road, said the store has likely sold more tickets with this drawing than any other. When the jackpot reached $667 million on Tuesday of last week, the store sold 510 Mega Millions tickets totaling $2,351, according to store receipts.
On Friday, with a jackpot of $1 billion, the store sold 764 tickets totaling $4,193.
At Shah Gasoline in the City of Poughkeepsie, the store sold so many Mega Millions tickets on Sunday that the ticket machine briefly stopped working, according to staff. Employees had to turn away multiple people looking to buy tickets.
Courtney Abedelhaei, a cashier from Hyde Park, said they haven’t sold this many tickets for previous large jackpots.
The store sold 247 Mega Millions tickets totaling $959 last Tuesday, according to store receipts, compared to 623 tickets totaling $2,795 on Friday.
It costs $2 to buy a Mega Millions, according to the game’s website. Players can select quick pick, in which six numbers are automatically generated, or pick five numbers from 1 to 60 and one number from 1 to 25. You win the jackpot if you match all six numbers. The odds of that happening are a modest 1 in 302,575,350.
The jackpot begins at $40 million and grows by at least $5 million every time there’s no winner. Drawings are held on Tuesdays and Fridays at 11 p.m.
Second prize is $1 million. There were 15 total second-prize winners awarded across the country in Friday’s drawing, four of which were sold in New York state, in Middletown, Yonkers, Niagara Falls and the Bronx.
The Mega Millions jackpot moved past the $1.586 billion Powerball drawing in January 2016 to become the largest jackpot in U.S. history, according to USA Today.
Martin Frei, 71, of Hyde Park, was having a drink at Georgie O’s on Sunday inspecting five Mega Millions tickets he had bought elsewhere. If he were to be the winner, he said, he would spend the money on his two adult children and four grandchildren.
“Most of it I would give away to my family," said the native of Switzerland who's lived in the U.S. for about 40 years.
Lucarini at that same Stewart’s bought two tickets, just as he did for the last drawing.
MEGA MILLIONS: Which area stores have sold winners?