How The ‘Lucky 16’ Manhattan Co-Workers Won $58 Million Lottery Jackpot

In Manhattan, 16 lucky office workers won the New York Mega Millions Lottery, taking a total of $58 million. The group has been playing the lottery together since 2010 and purchased their tickets from a particularly lucky location.

The group call themselves the “Lucky 16 Trust,” and all work in the same office for the biopharmaceutical company Ophthotech, according to ABC 7.

Lucky 16’s system was simple. Each week everyone would contribute about $4 to purchase multi-state tickets.

Evelyn Harrison, one member of the group, explained, “We rotate who buys the tickets and the stores where we buy to be fair to everyone. We also require the buyer to send copies of the ticket to everyone in the group so we all have it.”

They also reportedly buy from a different store every week.

The group was equally scrupulous when it comes to checking winning lottery tickets, according to the New York Post.

Harrison added, “We went from one person’s computer to another’s checking each person’s scan of the ticket because we wanted to be absolutely sure.”

Once they were sufficiently convinced, they called everyone into the conference room for the big announcement. Mathew Chung told CBS News that not a lot of work got done that day.

“There was a lot of energy in that room. We told ourselves to focus on work like nothing had happened. But, something did happen, and, to be honest, we didn’t accomplish a lot that day. It’s been a very intense ride.”

The Lucky 16 Trust agreed to split a one-time payment of $38,334,435. After taxes, each member of the group will get about $1.65 million.

The members plan on spending the money mostly on the responsible things, paying off student loans and retirement savings.

Harrison said, “We’re a small group. We ground each other. We won’t let anyone get carried away.”

But the Lucky 16 Trust aren’t the only ones excited about the win.

Carlton Cards, the store that sold the winning ticket, will also receive $10,000, but it’s nothing new for the unusually lucky store. They also sold a million dollar ticket back in 2010.

The store manager, 69-year-old Jay Patel, said, “I am happy that somebody won the ticket.”

“And I heard that there are more than one [winner] and that’s very good, too! We have lots of winners every month in this store. I think it’s a lucky store!”

In the end, the secret of the group’s success may have been stumbling upon that store.

The Manhattan Lucky 16 workers’ numbers were 2, 23, 32, 45, 55, and the Gold Mega Ball 12.

[Image Credit: Getty Images]