Which is the luckiest store to buy lottery in New York?- Where locals prefer to make some fortune

Every lottery players wants to be a winner. You go to a lottery retail store and want to buy a lottery but if someone tells you that a certain lottery store is lucky as many lottery winners have won from the particular store then you will obviously rush to that lottery retailer and get your lottery ticket instantly.

New York runs the largest lottery in the nation, reaching nearly $9.9 billion in revenue last year. The profits from the lottery go to fund education in New York. About $3.3 billion each year goes to fund schools, about 14 percent of the state’s total education budget. There have been nearly 25,000 New York Lottery tickets sold between 2012 and 2017 that yielded jackpots of at least $5,000.

Interesting, and now you are desperate to read which are the luckiest lottery stores in New York where locals prefer to make some fortune playing lottery.

Luckiest lottery stores

Rhinebeck Food and Gas store

One such popular lucky store is Rhinebeck Food and Gas which received a boost in early 2016 when a Tivoli woman purchased a New York Lottery Cash X100 scratch-off ticket game at the Rhinebeck store, and won the top prize of $5 million. The store owner Hamad believes that others came into the store hoping for another lucky draw.

“It does have an impact, especially if you post up the tickets,” he said. “When there’s a big winner, players do think it’s a lucky store and they do come in more.”

Of course, the odds of winning don’t change for customers from one shop to the next. There’s a 1 in 3,399,000 chance of winning Cash X100’s $5 million jackpot at any store the cards can be purchased.

But, a review of the last six years of lottery winnings over $5,000 show some retailers in Dutchess and Ulster counties, and around the state, have sold more winning tickets than others. Some of that luck can be attributed to a higher amount of traffic through the store.

The Smokes 4 Less

The Smokes 4 Less location on Freedom Plains Road in the Town of Poughkeepsie sold 12 winning tickets of $5,000 or more between 2012 and 2017, the most for any single retailer in Dutchess.

The Stewart’s Shops

The Stewart’s Shops location in Red Oaks Mill saw the most money paid out in that span, $10,290,889, with the bulk coming from a $10 million ticket sold in January 2017. At the Stewart’s in Red Oaks Mill, manager Kevin Borchardt said staff noticed an influx of customers after selling the $10 million ticket, which was the biggest prize the lottery had ever offered for a scratch-off game.

He said there was “a lot of word-of-mouth,” with people coming in to ask staff if they were in fact the store that had the big winner. Many lottery players are superstitious, he said, and care about hitting stores that have fared well. A sign still hangs in the front window of the store reminding customers that “we had a winner” of $10 million. Ed Daddona, 73, of the Town of Poughkeepsie, said he’s been buying lottery tickets for 40 years and knows better than to believe that one big win will surely lead to another. But big wins in his area, he said, let him know it’s at least possible. “That’s what it is: Hope,” he said.

K & V Petroleum

In Ulster County, K & V Petroleum on Ulster Avenue in Kingston sold 22 winning tickets totaling $397,513 for the six-year span, while the Citgo Mart on Main Street in New Paltz saw the most money paid out for any spot in Ulster, $3,128,300. It had a $3 million winner in July 2014. Estelle Ramaglia, a retired Dutchess County Sheriff’s Office detective who typically buys tickets twice a day, said she likes seeing local people win big because it reminds her that anyone can win, anywhere.

The stores with the highest total of winning tickets

Carlton Cards news-stand

The most winners came from the Carlton Cards newsstand in Penn Station in midtown Manhattan, the biggest seller of lottery tickets in the state. On average, $246,000 in lottery tickets are sold each week. In the last six years, it sold 49 tickets worth at least $5,000, including a $59 million Mega Millions jackpot in 2015.

The odds of winning Mega Millions are 1 in 302,575,350. The odds of getting struck by lightning are 1 in 700,000.

The most popular spots don’t always produce the most winners, though.

• Rhinebeck Food and Gas did not sell a winning ticket in 2016 or 2017 after that $5 million jackpot in on Jan. 4, 2016, records show.
• A Valero gas station on Route 302 in Middletown only sold four winning tickets worth at least $5,000 during the five-year span, state records showed. But it had the largest jackpot in the state’s history: The $321 Mega Millions jackpot in 2014.

So where to buy the lucky ticket

In Dutchess, the chain of stores that had the most luck from 2012-17 was Smokes 4 Less, with 43 winners. Stewart’s Shops was the luckiest chain in Ulster, with 26 winning tickets sold.

Wegmans is an upstate institution known for its fresh food and sandwiches, but it also isn’t a bad spot to play the lottery, the records showed.

The Rochester-based supermarket company sold tickets to 281 big winners at its 46 stores across the state, including million-dollar winners in Rochester, Corning, West Seneca, Niagara Falls and Johnson City.

• Broome County had 11 winners over $1 million since 2012 — the largest a $10 million scratch-off game in 2015 at the Mirabito gas station in Vestal.
• Dutchess County also had a $10 million scratch-off winner at a Stewart’s Shop in Poughkeepsie in January 2017, one of nine $1 million prizes the county has had since 2012.
• In Monroe County, the biggest jackpots didn’t come from the multi-state games Powerball and Mega Millions, but from the in-state Lotto — and in the same town.
• Last October, a $9.8 million winner was crowned at the Hegedorns Market in Webster, while in 2013, there was a $3.2 million Lotto winner at nearby Baytowne Liquor.
• Richard Giles, 76, of Macedon plays the lottery every day and won a $9.8 million Lotto jackpot on a ticket at Hegedorns Market in Webster. (Feb. 1, 2017) Carlos Ortiz

Tops Markets, though, did even better: 351 winning tickets worth at least $5,000 since 2012. But that was nothing compared to the roughly 1,000 winners who bought their winning tickets at a 7-Eleven convenience store, the records from the state Lottery Division showed.

For scratch-off games, KG Cards in Glen Head in Nassau County on Long Island had the most $5,000-plus winners. It had 16 winners, including a $5 million winner on a “Wild Bonanza” multiplier ticket and a winning jackpot on a $3 million “Frenzy” ticket.

But the biggest instant lottery winners came from the North Country. Two “Win $1 Million A Year for Life” tickets were sold in the region: One in 2013 in Clinton County and one a year later in St. Lawrence County. Each is valued at $20 million.

So what’s up..wanting to visit these stores to buy lottery tickets and try your luck..it’s your choice.