How would you react if you woke up and won the lottery? On Thursday, Sept. 6, the Fairfield Lottery Club, made up of employees from Al Filippone Associates of the William Raveis Real Estate Agency, awoke to a winning lottery number worth $2 million.
Karen Cross, a sales associate and Sacred Heart University alumna, founded the Lottery Club at the agency six years ago. The club first began with three employees. Cross collected $2 from each of the other employees and they bought three tickets and agreed to divide everything equally.
The small group of four expanded over time. This past year when the group did their collecting for the lottery it was much more organized than $2 a ticket.
“The past year I had everyone pay for a full year and then it was closed because it was a pain to collect money from everyone every month,” said Cross.
In the beginning of the day, before Cross had realized she was walking around with $2 million, she had just got into the office like any other day.
Cross said, “The receptionist had told me that the winning ticket was bought at Wheels Convenience Store and that’s when we got excited. When I checked the numbers we saw all five numbers but we were still missing that one number, the Powerball”.
The tickets were pulled on August 24 with the winning numbers being 1 6 13 18 49 and Megaball 8. Though the initial excitement had faded due to the missing Powerball number, it was quickly restored when Cross and another co-worker went to Wheels to go check it out.
“People were in shock and relieved because this new money took a lot of pressure off any money problems they were having at the time,” said Cross.
According to lottoland.ie, the odds of winning the lottery for Mega Millions is 1 in 3 million.
“The odds of winning the top prize in a major lottery is several million to one. Your chances of being struck by lightning are higher! Nevertheless, lucky people do win top prizes at various lotteries every week,” said Professor Lim of Sacred Heart’s Finance Department. “Top prize winners of multi-million dollar jackpots typically have two choices: Accept a lump sum of immediate payment or accept equal annual payments spread out over many years, depending on the lottery.”
Junior Taylor Typrowitcz said, “Winning the lottery is something everyone would like to happen to them in their life and it’s always the people who need it the most.”
For the month of September there have already been over 94 Conn. Lottery winners. Vasyl Pychach from Newington, Roxanne Mclellan from Southington, April Cortez from Groton, and Dennis Fabian from Darien all won $100,000 in September.
Sophomore Tia White said, “That’s a once in a lifetime opportunity and a blessing to all the members of the Lottery Club.”
