News from New York Lottery

For more information contact: Communications, 518-388-3415; email: questions@lottery.state.ny.us Web:nylottery.org

New Year, New Beginnings For Four New Lottery Millionaires

(Winners from Four Boroughs Collect $13,000,000 in Prize Money)

SCHENECTADY, NY (01/17/2008; 1130)(readMedia)-- The New York Lottery today presented $13,000,000 in prize checks to four new Lottery Millionaires representing New York, Kings, Richmond, and Bronx Counties. The four winners, all of whom came to New York from different parts of the world, received their prize checks at New York’s Castle Clinton, a national monument that serves as the ticket office for the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island Ferry.

The Lottery’s Yolanda Vega presented the first of four millionaire checks to the day’s top winner, Waleed Alsaidi, a 22-year deli clerk from New York City. Originally from Yemen, Alsaidi has lived in New York City for 10 years while his wife and young son remain in the Middle East.

“That is my dream for 2008,” said Alsaidi. “I will bring my wife and son to New York to be with me for a better life.”

Alsaidi works at his family-owned S & M Deli and Grocery on 7th Avenue in Harlem. It was there that he purchased his winning Win for Life Spectacular ticket which guarantees a minimum prize payout of $10,000,000.

“I bought it for myself as a New Year’s present,” said Alsaidi. “I scratched it in the break room and sat there, alone, in shock for a couple of minutes,” he said. “Then I just went back to work. I didn’t tell anyone. I didn’t know what to say.”

Alsaidi said plans are already in the works to bring his wife and young son to New York. “I haven’t told her about this yet,” he said. “I want to surprise her.”

Alsaidi purchased his winning ticket on December 31, 2007 and claimed it on January 2, 2008.

Fifty-four-year-old Luz Vasquez, a native of Columbia, said she cried when she realized she had a $1,000,000 winning ticket.

“I scratched it while I was walking home from work,” recounted Vasquez. “I just started crying and then I ran home from there.”

Vasquez is employed as a bookkeeper at the Artdent dental lab near her home in Boro Park, Brooklyn. She plans to use part of her $1,000,000 prize to help pay for her grandchildren’s college education.

Vasquez purchased her winning $500,000,000 Extravaganza ticket on December 26, 2007 at the Garcia’s Grocery on Foster Avenue in Brooklyn and claimed it the same day.

Maria Torres, 60, of Port Richmond, Staten Island is the youngest of 13 children. The third of four new downstate Lottery Millionaires said her parents came to New York City from Puerto Rico in 1955 looking for work and a fresh start.

“My family is still here, working and living in New York City, Staten Island and New Jersey,” she said.

The retired school secretary for the Board of Education credits divine intervention with masterminding her $1,000,000 windfall.

“I call it my Christmas Miracle,” said Torres. “The (Merry Money) ticket was a Christmas gift from my granddaughter. Now I am doubly blessed with family and fortune.”

Torres’ 19-year-old granddaughter purchased the winning ticket at the 7-Eleven on 4th Avenue in Staten Island on Christmas Eve, 2007. Torres claimed it on January 2, 2008.

Torres plans to invest her newfound wealth “to make even more for me and my family.”

Jesus “Chu” Roldan of Fordham, Bronx knows all about big families. The $1,000,000 winner on the Lottery’s Money Maker instant game has six children of his own and 18 grandchildren. The 61 year-old Roldan said he experienced his own Christmas Miracle.

I bought the ticket on Christmas day and became a millionaire,” said Roldan. “Now, I can retire after 27 years on the clock.”

Roldan, who came to New York from his native Puerto Rico in 1963, said he looks forward to fishing and relaxing with his wife, Juana, in Florida. He plans to announce his retirement from the Fulton Fordham Group where he works as a building superintendent, “sometime in 2008.”

Roldan purchased his winning ticket at the Little Italy newsstand on E. 187th Street in Bronx. He claimed it on December 26, 2007.

Now in its 40th year in operation, the New York Lottery has generated more than $31 billion to help support education in New York State, including a record $2.3 billion in fiscal year 2006-2007 on incoming revenue of $7.18 billion. For more information, contact the New York Lottery Communications office at 518-388-3415 or email questions@lottery.state.ny.us.

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