Page 15 - Florida Sentinel 11-23-18

National
Harlem’s $343M Lottery Winner Has Been Playing Same Numbers For 25 Years
ROBERT BAILEY
No One Has Claimed the $1.5 Billion Mega Millions Jackpot Yet. What Happens If the Winner Never Does?
Robert Bailey has been playing the same six lottery numbers for 25 years and plans to keep on doing it — even though his digits finally hit for a $343.8 million Powerball win, the largest in New York Lottery history.
Bailey, 67, was intro- duced by lottery officials Wednesday as the record- breaking winner at the Re- sorts World Casino in Queens.
The total prize in the Oct. 27 drawing was nearly $700 million, but he will split the jackpot with a woman in Iowa who also picked the winning numbers, 8, 12, 13, 19 and 27, with a Powerball of 4.
Bailey bought his win- ning ticket at a deli in Harlem. He usually buys tickets at a few different stores, but on this particular day, it was raining and he was visiting a friend, so he ducked into the deli and grabbed a Powerball ticket.
After checking the win- ning numbers that night on- line, he was shocked.
“I said to myself, ‘These look like my numbers.’ I tried to remain calm and sat down to watch some shows I had on my DVR. I didn’t sleep the rest of the night,” Bailey said.
Bailey, a retired federal government employee, said he got the lucky numbers from a family member years earlier. The most he had ever won using them previously was $30,000 from a lucky Take Five lottery ticket.
“I will continue playing my numbers until this train
runs out,” Bailey said. “I’m going to ride this out; I can’t stop now.”
Bailey didn’t come for- ward to claim his prize until after he met with a lawyer and financial adviser. He took a lump sum payment worth $198 million, less after taxes.
New York requires lottery winners to identify them- selves and participate in a news conference. Bailey, who wore dark sunglasses for the announcement, said he wished he could have kept his win quiet.
“It’s a good life changer,” said Bailey, who declined to describe the nature of his government work before re- tiring. “I plan to do the right thing with the money.”
He wants to buy some land and a house for his mother and set up some good investments to take care of the next generation of his family. He’d also like to travel, hitting Las Vegas and parts of the Caribbean.
Ultimately, though, he’d like to give back.
“I plan to give back to Manhattan; that’s where I’m from,” Bailey said. “I still want to be me. I can’t let money change me. I’m going to keep doing the right thing.”
This is the second con- secutive Powerball jackpot won in New York this year. The most recent win came in September when a Staten Is- land man won the $245.6 million jackpot.
The chance of winning the Powerball jackpot is 1 in 292.2 million.
A single ticket sold in Simpsonville, South Car- olina, took last month’s headline-grabbing, $1.5 bil- lion Mega Millions jackpot. But the winner has yet to claim the prize. What hap- pens to the money if no one ever does?
The states that partici- pate get their money back and spend it how they want. Some put it toward educa- tion, others toward taxes or infrastructure or law en- forcement. Many put it in a pot for future prizes and promotions.
There are 46 jurisdic- tions (44 states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Virgin Islands) that partici- pate in Mega Millions. Since the ticket was sold in South Carolina, the 45 other juris- dictions each contribute a
sum, proportionate to their amount of ticket sales, to the South Carolina lottery for the jackpot.
When no winner comes forward at the end of the al- lowed period (180 days in South Carolina and many other states, but six months or a year in others), each state takes back its un- claimed jackpot money, adds it to other unclaimed prize money, and directs it to its own cause—generally dictated by state law.
It’s been about three weeks since the drawing. The winner is likely getting their bank accounts in order, consulting with an at- torney, and otherwise preparing for the radical changes arising from a vast and sudden financial wind- fall. Even though the jackpot
will likely be claimed before the 180 days expire, the amount of unclaimed prize money each state ends up with is still significant.
In South Dakota last year, ticket-buyers walked away from $541,000 in lot- tery prize money. In North Carolina, they left $10.36 million on the table. In Cali- fornia, it was $36 million. In Arizona, one person failed to collect a $100,000 Power- ball ticket.
First-time Mega Millions players often do not realize that even if you don’t win the jackpot, matching some of the numbers in a drawing can still win you smaller prizes. With all the attention that went to the $1.5 billion jackpot, many players from the Oct. 23 drawing proba- bly fall into that category.
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