HOMECREST — Does this Brooklyn card store have the lotto mojo?
Three winning third-place Powerball tickets, each paying $50,000, were bought at the same store in Homecrest for the same Powerball drawing on Wednesday.
The three tickets were purchased at the Hallmark store at 1619 Ave. U (officially named 1619 SRS Corp.), according to New York Lottery.
“Oh my God, three tickets?” the shocked store owner, Jitendra Prajapati, told the Brooklyn Eagle on Thursday when informed of the triple win. “This is a lucky place.”
This is the second time someone has won $50,000 at the store, but the previous winner in 2017 bought just one ticket, he said.
Prajapati said he did not know who bought the tickets, and whether it was one purchaser or more. “They haven’t come forward yet,” he said. “When they do, I hope they bring me a gift.”
Jacquie Slater, director of communications for the New York State Gaming Commission, which runs the New York Lottery, confirmed the triple win, and said the organization was also still in the dark about who bought the tickets.
“It is not uncommon for an individual to purchase multiple tickets with the same number combinations,” she told the Eagle. “We do not know the identity of the winners until the tickets are claimed.”
In total, there were 52 third-prize winners across the country during this jackpot run, she said. One was sold in Manhattan’s Upper West Side and one in Medina, which is in western New York.
The $1.04 billion jackpot, the eighth-largest jackpot in Powerball history and the largest this year, was won by a single ticket sold in Illinois. Lotteries are urging players to check their tickets carefully, as more than 3 million tickets won cash prizes in Wednesday night’s drawing.
The New York Lottery contributed $3.8 billion in fiscal year 2023-2024 to benefit public schools across the state, lottery officials said.
The winning numbers in the Wednesday, Aug. 12, drawing were 4, 26, 66, 67 and 69, with a Powerball of 9. The Power Play multiplier was 2.