Plumber trying to pay for broken truck realizes he won lotto

If he hadn't been desperate to fix his truck, one Staten Island plumber might not have checked the lottery tickets he'd kept behind a pipe in his basement. One was weeks old –– and worth $136 million.

"So I thought I was having a heart attack or my heart stopped, so I really grabbed the ticket figuring they'll find it in my hand. And then I finally exhale," Anthony Perosi said at a press conference.

WNBC reports Anthony Perosi had heard about a winning ticket that was sold at the 7-Eleven he frequently purchased from, but a friend told him someone else had won from there recently, so he didn't bother checking.

But he did eventually. The New York Times reports he split his winnings with his son 70/30, taking more than $38 million after the split and taxes. He also takes home the title of biggest lottery jackpot ever won in Staten Island.

His ticket cost all of $2. A roughly 1.9 billion percent return on investment doesn't seem so bad.

He admitted in the press conference the numbers he chose were random at first, however, he'd been playing these same numbers for months. It's a strategy many advocate for increasing your odds.

Another strategy? Living in New York. Okay, given New York's size, your chances probably aren't that different-- but as WPIX reports, Perosi is the third New Yorker in the past six months to win over a million dollars.

Perosi says he wants to keep working as a plumber, just a little less often.

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