Queens Postal Worker Wins $500,000 Pick 10 Lottery Prize

SCHENECTADY, NY (01/26/2011)(readMedia)--

Carmelo Amoroso of Middle Village, Queens, won a $500,000 Pick 10 prize from the New York Lottery on January 16th. "I have been buying Lottery tickets for years but never won more than a few hundred dollars," said Amoroso, 60, a post office maintenance manager

A father of four and grandfather of one, Amoroso didn't believe it when he learned he was a winner. "I got a printout of the drawing results from the store and checked my ticket at home," he said. "Then I had to call my family to make sure it was real."

Amoroso purchased his advance play Pick 10 Quick Pick ticket at the Maspeth Express Minimart on Grand Avenue in Maspeth – the same location where he's purchased his advance play Pick 10 tickets for more than a decade.

He won the top prize of $500,000 for matching all of the Pick 10 numbers drawn on January 16th. He claimed his prize on January 24th at the Lottery's Garden City Customer Service Center.

"I'm going to save for the grandkids," said the happy grandfather. He also plans to pay off his mortgage.

Pick 10 is a $1 daily draw game. The odds of winning the top prize are 1 in 8,911,711. The odds of winning any prize on a $1 bet are 1 in 22.

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.

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Posted Wednesday January 26, 2011 at 02:15 pm by New York Lottery