I like to think it was a super-smart player and not dumb luck, but unless the winner appears on the NY Lottery website in "Winners Stories" we may never know the details. I've no idea if NYS requires publicity with a SM Jackpot win. They may not require it. If that's the case, and the winner declines any publicity, oh well! I would think the NYS Lottery would want to highlight the fact that there was a multiple SM jackpot winner to help juice up sales of SM tickets.
IMHO, The lottery playing public is basicly invisible to us because it's so spread out across the state. Just yesterday I saw a man (a complete stranger to me) playing what I consider to be a large amount of bet slips, and he was also cashing in winning tickets at the same time. The lottery terminal was repeatedly playing that tune it plays when the clerk scans a winning ticket. The clerk then took a stack of what looked like PB, MM, and T5 play slips from the man. I was watching the terminal screen that faces the customer, it was changing very quickly, and then it displayed a total of 36 dollars. The man then handed the clerk two twenty dollar bills.
The guy was older, was dressed in a dark blue navy pea coat, had on a pair of dark blue jeans, and was wearing a black cap. He didnt apear to me to be someone who could not afford to bet as much as he was playing. I was a little envious of him because he played as much as he did, and I wondered how frequently he played. He struck me as a smart player because he had so many winning tickets that he cashed in. I saw the words "Take Five $21.00 winner" flash across the terminal screen at least twice.
But just how saavy is the overall lottery playing public? Are there more players who just buy QP's, or are there a lot of sophisticated players like the guy I saw yesterday? I dont know.