Photo via NY Daily News.
** UPDATE **
Georgia state officials say that Lee will not receive any compensation for selling the winning ticket, according to NBC News. Lee told the news outlet she was “a little mad” that she wouldn’t receive anymoney but was still excited for the publicity.
ORIGINAL STORY:
It isn’t just the person who buys a lottery ticket that could possibly become a millionaire by winning the jackpot. The store owner who sells the ticket has just as good a chance.
Young Soo Lee, who runs a small newsstand near Atlanta in Buckhead, Ga., knew that she would get some money for selling a winning ticket, but had no idea that her prize would be $1 million. She only learned that she had just become a millionaire when a CNN reporter told her how much she is set to receive for selling one of two winning Mega Millions lottery ticket worth $636 million.
“I don’t know how much,” Lee said on camera, when asked if she knew how much she would get. “Long time ago, I heard it’s $25,000.”
When CNN reporter Martin Savidge informed her that she will collect an amount that’s 40 times more than what she had imagined, Lee was in utter shock.
“Oh, really?” Lee said. “Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh! I never had so much money!”
Lee immigrated to the United States from South Korea in 1980. She bought the Gateway Newsstand in 1980 inside an office building on Lenox Road in the affluent city of Buckhead.
The other winning ticket was sold in San Jose, Calif., by Thuy Nguyen to an unknown winner.
