A Pennsylvania man is feeling very well, thank you, after he won a $7 million lottery prize from a ticket that was enclosed in a get-well card from his father.
"I don't play the lottery at all, but my father is a retired hospital administrator-turned-avid Lottery player," Joseph Amorese of Easton, Pennsylvania, said, according to the New York Lottery.
Amorese's father sent the $7 Million Golden Ticket scratch card inside a greeting card, while Amorese recovered at home from surgery.
"I scratched the ticket and it was a good thing I was already sitting down because I was shocked. I was and still am in complete disbelief," Amorese, 46, said.
The Verizon employee said he immediately called his dad, who lives in Congers, New York, to double-check the winnings.
"I sent him a picture of the ticket and he said, 'Yup, you won $7,000,000!'"
He also called his wife, Jodi, a social worker.
"I said, Honey, I think we won $7,000,000. And there was silence on the other end for a long time. She was too stunned to talk."
The ticket was purchased at Just a Dollar in New City, New York.
Amorese's father declined to say if his son will reward him.
"I just wish him the very, very best, and I'm happy for him," he said.
When asked if he typically sends his son greeting cards, he said, "Well sure, you know, for Easter, Christmas and birthdays."
"Do I usually include a ticket? Yeah," Amorese's father said with a laugh. "I'm retired and I have time on my hands. You know, you want them to get something but if they get $100, they'll be happy. Most of us don't usually think you're going to hit the jackpot."
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That will get anyone well. Congrats to him!
Ok, he lives in PA, and won in NY --- what's the tax hit?
I am thinking BOTH states get a cut?
He will pay taxes in ny out of the check. He will then give in one taxes with New York and get most of it back. He will then file income taxes with pa and write them a check for what he got back from ny and possible a little more..... All this will happen in January.
what ??? ----"He will then give in one taxes with New York and get most of it back"
Congratulation to Joseph Amorese, on his win. Since it give to him by his father, since his father doesn't is not asking for anything, I believe they will do something nice for him.
Congrats to Joseph Amorese on his winning ticket! I also think that he will probably give something to his father.
What a great story to read.
Lesson here is that small acts of kindness are very important parts of life.
I think what he means is that when you live in one state and earn income from another state, you first pay your home state's income tax on the amount that was earned (in this case "won"), and then if the other state the income was earned in (where the ticket was purchased) has a higher tax rate than your home state, you pay the difference between the two states to the other state.
In this case PA does not claim to tax lottery winnings, but NY has a state tax of 8.82%, so the winner will probably end up paying the 8.82% NY state tax only, with no state tax paid to PA. (In addition to Federal taxes, of course.)
Wow! Good for him. I am sure he will share with his father.
"I don't play the lottery at all, but my father is a retired hospital administrator-turned-avid Lottery player," Joseph Amorese of Easton, Pennsylvania, said, according to the New York Lottery.
It goes to show you how this thing is ruthlessly random. A non player winning all that money while a serious player walks home with empty pockets and fresh ideas of how he could win the next time.
The funny thing, I heard about this this morning on the way to work, from the radio morning show I listen to. They played a clip from a talk show, who said that when he finished paying his hospital bill, he would go home with $900.
I was thinking of how lucky this guy is, and hope that he does something nice for his father.
And that is why I sign the back of any ticket that I give as a gift so that even if you win big, so do I. I'll be <snip>ed if I have to go through life thinking I finally bought the winning big one and gave it away.
What's the point of giving someone a gift if you are expecting something out of it? Just give them a gift certificate or something instead of a lottery ticket and keep the scratch off for yourself.
Unless you are the type that would send a get well card with a lottery ticket to a love one, it'll never happen.
The income was earned in NY, so it's subject to NY income tax. He'll pay income tax to NY based on the percentage of his total taxable income that was earned in NY. If his other income was $150k and he's got 50 k in deductions his taxable income will be $7.1 million. 98.6% of that would be from his NY income, so he'd pay 98.6% of the normal NY tax on $7.1 million.
PA will credit him for the taxes paid to NY, so he doesn't also pay PA tax on it. If PA had a higher tax rate than NY he'd owe the balance to PA.
That's only one of the ways that people know you're a huge aszhole, right?
Yep, because that's the only possible time that you might ever give a lottery ticket to someone, the only time...
I'd rather be a huge a-hole with millions than one sitting in a corner crying because I gave away millions. I tell anyone that gives me tickets to do the same. My aunt if she buys draw tickets for anyone, plays the same numbers for herself. If you are upset that someone bought you a free ticket that made you millions of dollars and you had to give them some of it, maybe you are the one that is an a-hole?
Not necessarily, I've sent them to family members just for the fun of it but stopped when they said they would rather have the money. Started sending the cost of the tickets instead and stopped that too when they answered "what do you expect me to do with a lousy $5".
Aww.... what a sweet and caring dad. Congratulations Jospeh that fact that he called his dad to ask if he won tells me he will bless his father with something nice.
i give lotto tickets, i just make sure i really really like the person enough to give em a ticket. xmas or something maybe birthdays. so i dont give many
Get Well and Congratulations!
I never give lottery tickets away and I don't like anyone to give them to me. If I am sending a card and feel I need a small token in it I always send Starbucks cards! Same price and who doesn't love a Starbucks.
I used to give away tickets also but I stopped because I always wondered if I gave away a big winner and the recipient didn't recognize that it was a winner.
RJ, I hope you told them what they could do with the 5 bucks
A few years ago Rgdrnr told you if someone were to give him a lottery ticket signed at the back, he would pull out a cigarette lighter and burn the ticket right there. Personally I'd just give it back to the giver. I don't accept gifts from people with small hearts.
Glad you stopped sending anything to them ungrateful family members.
They don't even deserve one thin dime, sure wish you'd win the lottery and shun them.
i did register some tickets i gave away to my player card, but wrote their names on the bach with " happy birthday, xxxx or xmas xxxx , " just so if they where recovered and someone tried to claim them, it would be registered,. if lost i guess i would never know it was theirs. or mine. but hey. i also tried scratching scratchersm, just to reveal the bar code that lets you scan them to see if they're winners. and only handing out winning scratchers.
here the scanner doesnt say what the prize is. so it would be a mystery what prizes anyone wins. but found that after $15 spent i had only 2 winning tickets. anfd to get the 6 winners i wanted would prob cost close to $50. so i gave up on that as a bad a idea.
Wow...
I remember that now. Great memory, thanks for posting.
Yeah, it takes a special kind of jerk to give a scratchoff ticket as a gift and actually sign it!
Yeah I remember it well because we were all really disgusted.
No they probably figured it out on their own once I stopped. Actually I had a worst response from a LP member who said good bye to the forum years ago.
His name was CalifDude and one time when Rolling Cash5 jackpot was at $600K+ he PM me crying the blues about a sister he supposedly had in Ohio who he couldn't contact to play his RC5 numbers. Since I had planned to play twenty lines I responded and offered to include 10 lines of his numbers in my 20 lines, pay for them myself and any money they won over their $10 cost I would split equally with him. He responded he didn't send out less than a 100 lines and he expected gratuities of $100. I did tell him where to go since he PM me first.
Congratulations on your win
congrats happy to hear somone win, know i,m next in line.
In my state, Louisiana, if a resident pays income tax to another state while being a Louisiana resident, the amount can be deducted from their Louisiana state income tax liability, which would include the income from the other state.
Congratulations, and I wish him a speedy recovery.
But his dad needs to be careful.
It's illegal to send lottery tickets through the mail unless it's for a claim.
this must be a 25.00 per ticket game not seen any others??
http://nylottery.ny.gov/wps/portal/Home/Lottery/Home/Instant+Scratch-Off+Games/%2410+AND+UP/%2420+GAMES/The+%247%2C000%2C000+Golden+Ticket/The+%247%2C000%2C000+Golden+Ticket+-+Chances+of+Winning
Is it too early for Congratulations?
Makes me think some of the lottery prizes that go unclaimed might be caused by people getting lottery tickets as gifts and not knowing how to or can't check their worth. Maybe it would be better if the people buying them checked them first and send a note with them stating their value, kind'a like folks who send out gift cards with a notice that they have contributed a large sum of money to their favorite charity in your name.
"I don't play the lottery at all, but my father is a retired hospital administrator-turned-avid Lottery player,"
Joseph Amorese of Easton, Pennsylvania
I'll bet, if you'll pardon the pun, he'll play many lotteries from now on!
This Is An Awesome Story, I Love Hearing Stories Like This.
Congrats On Your Big Win!!!!!
Get well card...that in fact may have happen beyond what is told of this story. I myself wonder about my health as liken to my 'life span'. Health care is a personal responcablity and ye needs to nurture and keep thyself fit. My best thought once was at a 'Healing Garden' a daily routine for 5 months and several hours per day laboring and exercising., Website; "BeyondLongevityUntoImmortality" is exactly as says., The words longevity, anti-aging, add up to a life span of becoming immortal. Live the good life with your winnings., Health & Strenght to ya.
a scratch-off lottery ticket is really a poor choice for a gift. maybe as long as it is a relative it can be justified somewhat. but what are you really giving someone. 99 times out a 100 it will just be a small token amount or more than likely just a worthless piece of cardboard. someone previous said check it first before giving it, which of course is ludicrous. if by some miracle it is a big one who's going to actually follow through with the giving of it. if it is a loser or a break even situation it seems like a shallow gift to give someone a already scratched card. better idea would be a 3 or 6 month advance draw ticket on a cash 5 drawing or similar type of game. but, people are lazy when gift shopping and although the intentions may be good the result may cause consternation and resentment.
That may be true but lotteries often has promotions around special occasions suggesting scratch-off as stocking stuffers at Christmas and lovely sweetheart gifts at Valentine and etc. I do think the givers should know the persons well enough to know they would know how to check and cash in the tickets if they had any value.
Why, myturn? He and his wife are now able to retire and live a comfortable, within reason, lifestyle with this hefty net amount.
I'd still play, out of habit and out of fun.
If you can afford it, why not? As long as you don't play astronomically higher wagers.
Great story congrats to the winner.
real surprising that the lottery would suggest such a thing. do you think it might be because they are the ones selling them. i stand by my claim that it is a bad idea. do what you want and suffer the repercussions when someone hits a big one. 95% would be kicking themselves and lose sleep over the fact that they could have held that ticket and would say probably to themselves what rotten luck, the one time i could have won and i gave it away. meanwhile, the recipient will be buying new cars and houses. living it up like diamond jim brady and you'd be lucky if they tossed you a bone.
What are you really giving someone? A few minutes of entertainment, and a non-impossible dream of sudden wealth.
This thread reminded me of when I was going back to school some years ago and money was tight and couldn't afford much in the way of Christmas presents. Depending upon how much I had to spend, I'd buy several runs of five tickets for my folks (figuring that within the odds on the tickets, at least one "should" be a winner.) My reasoning was what can you buy someone of that age that they'd enjoy and appreciate? Mom already had a lifetime's worth of knick-knacks and I would have had to had been a millionaire to get my dad a "toy" that he would've liked.
I don't think they ever won much at all on the tickets, not even the face value of them, but I do know they enjoyed the gift. We'd all be opening our presents, a furious storm of flying wrapping paper amongst "Ooohs" and "Ahhs" and I'd see momma find her envelope with the scratch tickets. She'd stop w/ the other presents and get her purse and find a coin and start scratching, her head down and intent on revealing the numbers. Dad would look up and whisper "Is that for both of us?" with the beginning of annoyance that she was scratching "his" share, too. "No, don't think so." mom would reply. "I saw an envelope just like it w/ your name on it." Pop would start rummaging around his stack of pkgs. until he found his tickets. He'd use the back of a blade on his pocketknife to scratch away the latex covering on the numbers, both of my folks oblivious to everyone else, even those thanking them for what they had received from them. (they loved to gamble)
As I said, they never won much of anything (on the tickets I bought them, they had much better luck on their own purchases), but they seemed to appreciate the gift. I'm sure this man's dad was glad his son won big, just as I would've been if my own folks had.
Never thought they could sell $25 tickets at a dollar store. You could fill half a shopping cart with that.
heavens to murgatroyd. all you did by giving them this shallow xmas gift was overshadow all the other normal gifts from more thoughtful people by giving them an instant gambling game on that glorious day. your father casting aside the other gifts to get at his scratch tickets speaks volumes about the dysfunctional family you must have. simply put, getting more excited about a rasher of scratch tickets over other gifts kind of ruins the day for most. poorest choice of a gift you can make. too lazy to shop for a normal gift on that day i guess.
Who are you to judge someone like that???
Did you not read that Mom didn't need anymore knickknacks that would not mean much to her, and he didn't have enough money to buy Dad a toy he would like?
He gave them gifts that they truly enjoyed, so Mom and Dad obviously didn't think they were the "poorest choice of a gift".
Nice story mike. My wife buys me scratchers every Christmas.
"95% would be kicking themselves and lose sleep over the fact that they could have held that ticket and would say probably to themselves what rotten luck, the one time i could have won and i gave it away."
People who feel that way should never give out lottery tickets as gifts even to themselves.
i judge what i see as an absolute waste of common sense when it comes to gift giving. it's a long way from surmising that "mom" wouldn't like or want another knickknack to coming to the decision that a scratch ticket or two is something that she would want over all the other items in the world whether expensive or inexpensive. if it was only the 3 of them opening presents (maybe as a stocking stuffer joke gift) it could be justified. but what about other family members giving real gifts and not saying anything until they got in the car on the way home and commenting "i can't believe mom and dad threw our presents (which were more thoughtful and useful) off to the side and immediately started a scratch fest to see how much money they could win. sonny boy ruined our christmas with that shallow gift that dominated the day. last time we're coming here for christmas. or something like that. mom and dad may have liked it being alleged gamblers, but it is poor form to give those especially on that day.
At least my folks didn't raise an a-hole like yours did.
they definitely shouldn't give them out to other people, that's the point of this. but why not to themselves. anyone who would be thrilled about giving away a major lottery prize should (i agree, not buy them)