Talk About Winning the Double!
There’s winning the Lottery…
And then there’s winning two big jackpots? On the same day?
Angelo Gallina beat the incredible odds, and on Wednesday the Belmont retiree claimed his payoff: $6.6 million, after taxes, for holding the winning ticket from both the SuperLotto and the Fantasy 5 games on Nov. 20. It’s the only time in the 17-year history of the California Lottery that’s happened. And experts said the odds of doing it are mind-boggling.
The odds of winning SuperLotto are 1-in-41 million. For Fantasy 5, 1-in-575,000. But for both?
“This is just amazing, astronomical,” said Stanford University statistics professor Tom Cover as he calculated the probability of the double-header. “Oh brother,” he muttered before announcing the odds: 1 in 23.575 trillion.
Cover said the odds that an individual player will win improve if he or she buys multiple tickets, but this run of luck is “still very, very rare.”
Gallina has been betting against the odds since the game started.
“I dumped a lot of money in it,” explained Gallina, who spends about $600 each month on the two games. “I was hoping I’d get it back.”
The retired machinist for Southern Pacific Railroad buys an average of 20 lotto tickets a day with rental income. “That’s the entertainment,” he said. “It saves a trip to Reno.”
Gallina bought the winning tickets on Nov. 20 for that night’s SuperLotto $17 million jackpot and the Fantasy 5 $126,000 jackpot. But he and wife Maria will receive considerably less for choosing the lump-sum cash prize.
Gallina, 78, said it made more sense than waiting around for the 26 annual payments.
The pair mused about buying a car and traveling to Italy, Maria’s homeland. Gallina said he’ll probably splurge on the children, too.
“We’ve got two boys, aged 38 and 33, and I think I’m going to have to buy them shoes,” Gallina wise-cracked.
He also won’t have to worry about saving money on motor oil and cat food.
“I’m collecting rebate coupons,” Gallina said, “but now I’m going to throw them all away.”
What an incredible, inspiring story. You’ve got to be in it to win it and someone has to … every week. Why not you?
Category: Winning the Lottery Comment »