They’re betting that lightening strikes twice.
Big Apple mom-and-pop shops with a recent history of selling lottery tickets with multimillion-dollar payouts are drawing hordes of customers ahead of the $1.1 billion Powerball drawing Monday.
“I think we’re a lucky plaza,” said Jenny Fan, general manager of the Hua Lian Supermarket in Flushing, Queens — where a $256 million Powerball ticket was sold in December.
“On Point Pharmacy across the parking lot has also sold some pretty big winners,” she said Sunday.
“We’ve definitely seen more people come here to buy their tickets,” said the worker, whose store has a “Powerball Jackpot Winner” banner greeting customers at its front door, then smaller paper signs featuring lesser prize-winners on the walls inside.
“We’re getting a reputation as a lucky store.”
Fan said that for Monday’s drawing, she witnessed a line of waiting ticket-buyers wrapping around the grocery store over the weekend.
Other recent winnings in the Big Apple include a $5 million Bonus 100X scratch-off bought at 7 Days Wine & Spirits in Greenpoint, Brooklyn; a $3 million Electric 10X scratch-off bought at 6th Avenue Mini Market in Sunset Park, Brooklyn — and a $2 million winning ticket and another $3 million one separately sold at the same Harlem deli earlier this month.
“This is the place to play lotto now,” boasted Hussain Musaid, 20, to The Post, referring to his family’s Harlem business, Esam Deli — which sold the twin winning Mega Millions tickets for the Aug. 15 drawing on the same day.
“Everybody is coming this way,” Musaid said.
Musaid said a steady stream of roughly 50 Powerball customers have been coming to the Lenox Avenue store daily to try their luck after the back-to-back win.
“That’s very lucky. It’s not just [for] the store but the community itself,” said 55-year-old city worker Althea, whose noted that her first winning purchase would be a house.
“This is Central Harlem. So this is great that we actually finally get something.”
A 40-year-old Harlem resident named Thomas added of the two-fer win, “That’s extremely lucky.
“I’m glad that it happened here,” he said.
If he should win Monday’s jackpot, “I’m taking my whole family on a big vacation,” he said moments before purchasing his own ticket.
“I’m probably going to go on a monthlong world tour around the world, all together,” he said. “And then after that … I’m going into real estate. I’m trying to keep the money going.”
Powerball is on a near three-month drought after the last winning ticket — for $204.5 million — was sold in California in May. Monday’s $1.1 billion prize would be the fifth-highest jackpot in Powerball history, reps said.
A jackpot winner Monday would score a lump cash payment of $498.4 million before taxes or one immediate payment followed by 29 annual payments increasing by 5% each year.
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