Million-dollar lottery ticket sold in Cold Spring
This past June 15, George Wilson stopped at the Gulf gas station near Foodtown to fill up his car. On a whim, the Cold Spring resident bought a $5 scratch-off ticket for a New York Lottery game called Super Tripler Cash.
“I read the ticket after scratching it and knew immediately I had won the jackpot,” Wilson told lottery officials.
The jackpot was $1 million, or $522,822 after taxes. Wilson, 59, said at the time he planned to use the money for retirement.
Lottery officials release the names of any winner of $1 million or more, although a spokesperson said the agency did not take a photo of Wilson with a giant check, as is often done. And unlike with Powerball draws, retailers do not earn bonuses when they sell winning scratch-offs. So the station has only the honor of having sold a big-money ticket.
Winning at least $1 million on a lottery ticket is uncommon but not unheard of. Since 2012, six Putnam County residents have done it. The largest jackpot was $2.5 million on a scratch-off purchased in 2016 by a 23-year-old landscaper at a Gulf station in Brewster.
No one in Beacon has won more than $25,000 since 2012, but a scratch-off purchased at a Stewart’s Shop in Poughkeepsie in January 2017 was worth $10 million.
In Philipstown, Foodtown had a $10,000 winner in 2015, Appalachian Market in Garrison had a $15,000 winner that same year and the Gulf in Garrison had a $20,000 winner in 2013. In Beacon, the most recent big win was $22,731 on a Take 5 ticket purchased in May 2015 at the Citgo on Fishkill Avenue.
The New York Lottery says it distributes more than $2 billion to public schools annually from its proceeds. In the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2017, Putnam County schools received $13 million, according to lottery officials.
