The odds of winning the grand prize for Powerball are one in 195 million, and a group of Costco employees on Long Island have handily beaten those odds, winning a $201.9 million jackpot. (It has a lump-sum value of $106 million.) The winners' workplace—but not their identities—was revealed today, and a Costco employee who was not a member of the Costco "lottery club" tells Newsday one of the winners insists "she is going to keep working. Everything is still the same." But not everyone who won is completely insane; the man credited with founding the lottery club, who works at Costco as a greeter, is said to have already quit his job.
The Quick Pick ticket was sold at the Maulik & Chandni stationery store in Lindenhurst; Newsday reports that the store's owners will get $10,000 for selling the winning ticket. The store is owned by husband and wife Mitul and Parul Patel, who also sold a winning lottery ticket worth $1 million back in September 2006. Because of their past luck, the Patels have developed a loyal gambling clientele, some of whom weren't too thrilled about coming so close to the jackpot. "I'm the unlucky guy," said 64-year-old Lindenburst resident Stephen Andersen as he wandered across the parking lot waving a handful of lottery tickets and depressing the hell out of anyone who reads this.
