Richfield Springs Couple Receives the Ultimate Christmas Gift

NEW HARTFORD, NY (01/13/2011)(readMedia)-- Every Christmas 25-year-old Adrienne Gray and her fiancé Donald Oldick III, 24, gather with family to exchange New York Lottery instant tickets to celebrate the holiday. This holiday season the family tradition took on new meaning as Oldick scratched a Win $1,000 a Week for Life instant ticket and revealed three 'LIFE' symbols, guaranteeing the couple a minimum jackpot prize of $1,000,000.

"Honestly I thought it was a fake ticket," explained Oldick, a purchasing agent for Bassett Medical Center in Cooperstown. "I slid the ticket over to Adrienne and she immediately started screaming. That's when I was convinced it was the real thing!"

"I guess my excitement was contagious," said Gray, a stay-at-home mom for the couple's two children. "Once I started screaming the whole family started passing the ticket around. A few minutes later we were all jumping around and screaming together."

The winning ticket was purchased by Gray's uncle at the Xtra Mart on Seneca Turnpike in New Hartford. Gray and Oldick claimed their prize at the Lottery's Customer Service Center in Schenectady on December 27, 2010. They chose to split the jackpot evenly with each receiving 19 annual payments of $26,000 (net $17,168) and one additional payment of $6,000 (net $3,962) to realize the guaranteed $1,000,000 minimum. Once the minimum prize has been paid, they will each continue to receive an annual net check totaling $17,168 for life.

Oldick and Gray said their plans for the money are practical. "It feels like a weight has been lifted off our shoulders," explained Grey. "We'll definitely set up a college fund and put some money aside for a down payment on a house."

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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