On Tuesday night, a Mega Millions lottery ticket purchased in a Manhattan pizza joint won a staggering $432 million, the largest jackpot in New York City history.
In the massive draw, the lucky ticket purchased at Pronto Pizza on West 48th Street in Midtown was the only winner.
According to Mega Millions, the jackpot will be worth around $315 million in cash, or about $192 million after taxes.
With a $10,000 commission for selling the jackpot-winning ticket, the pizza joint will also get a slice.
The winning ticket was purchased Tuesday night, just before all six numbers were drawn: 36, 41, 45, 51, 56, and Mega Ball 13, according to Pronto owner David Khirala.
“I don’t know who it is,” Khirala said, noting he “had a lot of people buying tickets yesterday.”
“I hope [they are] one of my regular customers. They deserve it to win,” he said, saying it was his “first major win” at the store.
“I’m happy for this person. With the pandemic and everything, probably they need it,” he said, hoping it “came at the right time for this person.” “Who knows if they have credit cards bills, kids to go to school……you never know,” he said.
It’s at least the third million-dollar prizewinner at the store, with a previous $3 million ticket sold by the same employee as Tuesday’s Mega Millions ticket, according to Khirala.
Khirala said he was “not excited” about his $10,000 bonus, despite his excitement for his now-uber-wealthy customer.
“At least one or two percent would be fair … the state is always the winner,” he complained. “They can do better.”
The jackpot is the five boroughs’ largest ever lottery win, just a few million shy of the state record of $437 million set by a group of 23 Long Island coworkers on New Year’s Day in 2019.
They made just over $176 million after taxes, or about $7.7 million each if divided equally, while remaining anonymous through a limited liability company named New Life 2019 LLC.
The previous largest lottery win in New York was $343.8 million in October 2018, when Harlem retiree Robert Bailey, then 67, shared the $687 million Powerball prize with another winner in Iowa. After taxes, he earned $125,396,690.
The Mega jackpot was so large this week because it hadn’t been won since June 8, when a winning ticket was sold in Illinois, according to the lottery. As a result of New York’s win, the jackpot for the next drawing, which will be held on Friday, will be reset to $20 million.
However, with Wednesday night’s Powerball draw worth $490 million, there’s a chance of an even bigger winner before then.
On Wednesday, at least some customers went to Pronto hoping that their luck would rub off as they purchased their Powerball tickets.
“People think this is the lucky store now,” Khirala told The Post, saying he had “definitely” sold more tickets to those hoping Pronto would produce “back-to-back” windfalls for its customers.
“I hope I have more big winners,” he said.
George Chau, a Pronto customer who has won up to $10,000 with Pronto tickets, hoped his luck would continue when he purchased Powerball tickets for Wednesday night’s draw.
He said, “Oh yeah, good karma here.”
Another customer, 62-year-old George Culha, won $10 while looking through old tickets and spent it all on Powerball tickets.
