What it’s like to (almost) win a million dollars

What it's like to (almost) win a million dollars

Pizzeria owner missed by one





Jimmy Hatzisotiriou still smiles as he makes pies at his business in Stony Brook. (click for larger version)

February 26, 2009 | 01:13 PM
Late last December Jimmy Hatzisotiriou and his wife, the owners of Manhattan Pizza, Nesconset Highway in Stony Brook, decided to take the ferry to Foxwoods. Hatzisotiriou said they missed the boat that morning and went for coffee at Dunkin' Donuts on Main Street in Port Jefferson. To kill time, Hatzisotiriou walked next door to Cliff's Newsstand and bought some scratch-off lottery tickets.

There was another guy in the store also scratching off tickets. That guy asked newsstand operator Cliff Schneiderman for a $20 ticket. "I said, 'Give me one, too,'" Hatzisotiriou recalled recently. That other guy was Vincent Droscoski of Port Jefferson, a regular early morning visitor at Cliff's.

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With both men waiting for a $20 scratch-off ticket, Schneiderman said he hesitated for a moment then handed the first ticket to Droscoski, his regular customer. Hatzisotiriou got the next ticket.

Droscoski declined to be interviewed for this story, but Schneiderman said his good customer that morning soon suspected he might be in for the big bucks as he methodically scratched off one digit at a time. "He saw the comma and the three zeros," Schneiderman said. Then sure enough, another comma and three more zeros followed.

"He got $1 million," Hatzisotiriou said, and "he ran out the door. I was still scratching."





	Cliff Schneiderman of Cliff's Newsstand handed a $1 milliion scratch-off lottery ticket to a customer in late December. D. Willinger. (click for larger version)

Droscoski and his wife claimed their prize the next day. According to New York Lotto, each will receive $25,000 a year for 20 years — before taxes.

"I got zero," Hatzisotiriou said, but the Lake Grove resident can still laugh at his brush with fortune. "The trick is not to worry too much," he said.

Still, what if the tickets had been handed out the other way around. What would he do if he won a million?

"I'm 65. I would have retired," Hatzisotiriou said with a smile from behind the counter at his pizzeria last week, and added a couple of garlic knots to an order of two regular slices — at no extra charge.

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