'Minute To Win It' Makes Warwick Man An Instant Lottery Millionaire

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Guy Pennisi with the Lottery's Jina Meyers

• The Lottery's Jina Meyers and winner Guy Pennisi

The New York Lottery's Minute To Win It Challenge Tour served as the perfect backdrop Sunday for the game's first $1,000,000 prize check presentation. Jackpot winner Guy Pennisi of Warwick, Orange County received his ceremonial check from Lottery Draw Team member Jina Myers at Middletown's Galleria Mall at Crystal Run.

The 28-year-old longshoreman at Pier 90 in Manhattan added a Minute To Win It ticket to his "two eggs over easy, bacon, and home fries" order at Joe's Restaurant on Court Street in Brooklyn on February 27th. Pennisi said "the whole restaurant went crazy" when he scratched his ticket and realized his good fortune.

"I like the show so I decided to buy the ticket," Pennisi said of his decision to play the newly-launched $5 game. The odds of winning a top prize on the $5 Minute To Win It ticket are 1 in 2,646,000.

The International Longshoreman's Association employee is the first statewide Minute To Win It jackpot winner since the game's launch on February 1st. Pennisi claimed his prize on March 2nd at the Lottery's New York City Customer Service Center.

This was the Orange County man's second brush with Lottery luck; Pennisi won $50,000 playing Quick Draw in February 2009. "Am I lucky?" he asked. "That's what they tell me."

Pennisi plans to use his million to buy a house. A trip to Vegas may also be in the cards. "My dad has other plans for me," he joked. "He says I need to find a wife."

The New York Lottery continues to be North America's largest and most profitable Lottery, earning more than $39.3 billion in education support statewide since its founding over 40 years ago. The Lottery contributed nearly $2.67 billion in fiscal year 2009-2010 to help support education in New York State, which was over 12 percent of total state education funding to local school districts.

Lottery revenue is distributed to local school districts by the same statutory formula used to distribute other state aid to education. It takes into account both a school district's size and its income level; larger, lower-income school districts receive proportionately larger shares of Lottery school funding.

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