Valentine Loves Lotto
Last Updated: Thursday 22nd November 2018, 14:57
Two New York Lotto winners had a Valentines to remember when they were presented with their share of a $8,000,000 Lotto jackpot won on 30 January, 2007.
Pablo Mogollon from Queens is a 54 year old nurse. “I love Lotto,” he said. “I started playing back in nursing school for the fun of it and have been playing the same lucky numbers ever since.”
He spent $5 on the New York Lotto draw, using both his own randomly chosen lucky numbers and Quick Pick numbers to generate his entries. “There is no special meaning to the numbers I chose,” he explained. “They’re just my numbers – or so I thought.”
Pablo was of course referring to the fact that he was unknowingly sharing his numbers with his fellow jackpot winner, Oleg Soloviev from Brooklyn. Like Pablo, Oleg also used his own combination of random numbers and the Quick Pick feature to make his entries.
The two winners both decided to take their prize as a single cash lump sum worth $2,196,506. Although this sum is taxable under US law, each winner will still be a cash millionaire by the time they have given the IRS its share of the money.
Both Pablo and Oleg are now spending some time thinking about how to spend their New York Lotto fortunes. Pablo had already scheduled a month-long holiday in Peru to spend time with his family and friends. After that, he says that he may invest in a new home in New York, and maybe consider settling down romantically – something that he said is, “not out of the question.”
Oleg plans to invest some of his money in repairing his home and will also set aside funds for his daughters. “I’m looking ahead to college and weddings for both of my daughters,” he said.
