Lucky in the lottery

For the second time in less than four years, Cedarhurst resident Richard Giordonella won a $1 million New York state lottery jackpot prize through the Sweet Million drawing on Aug. 5.

Giordonella, 51, a heavy equipment operator, will net $666,300 from his one-time payment. He also won $1 million through the lottery’s Extravaganza instant game in 2006.

How Giordonella will spend his new won riches is up for debate. “I’m thinking about a new car to replace the 15-year old Ford Bronco in our driveway,” he said during a winner’s press conference on Sept. 8. “And maybe a new boat, if I’m allowed,” Giordonella said jokingly.

The winning Quick Pick ticket was bought a day before the drawing at Turnpike Enterprises One on Rockaway Turnpike in Lawrence. He drove around with the ticket in his truck for a week and returned to Turnpike Enterprises on Aug. 11 to check his numbers.

“This was only the second time I bought a ticket for that game,” Giordonella said. “My wife liked the commercials and I like the odds.” Those odds are 1 in 3.8 million.

His winning numbers were 5-14-18-23-28-38. The commercials' the tag line is “Sweet Million is sweeter than sweet, which is sweet.” Nassau County has five other jackpot winners this year.

“I was bouncing off the walls for the rest of the day,” he said, after seeing his winning ticket.

The lottery’s catch phrase “you have to be in it to win it” now applies doubly to Giordonella, a father of two, who noted that things sometimes fall into place.

“Everyone always asks me why I keep buying tickets after I won the million a few years,” he said. “You don’t know what’s going to happen. I never dreamed I would win the first time around; let alone a second time. It just happens.”