Long Island mom Yuliya Lankri said yesterday her husband’s holiday gift of a New York Lottery scratch-off ticket will pay $1 million a year for life — with a guarantee of at least $20 million.
“Miracles happen, and they happen on Hanukkah, and I believe in that,” beamed Lankri, 37, of Valley Stream, at a press conference called by the state Lottery Commission yesterday.
The stay-at-home housewife and mother of three said her husband, Gabriel, 46, bought the $30 “Win $1,000,000 a Year For Life’’ ticket on Dec. 21 at a Queens Village store.
“It’s all yours, baby,’’ he told her when he got home.
Yuliya, who immigrated to America from Russia two decades ago, used a penny to scratch off the ticket and realized, to her amazement, she’d won an annual check of $661,800 after taxes.
“I didn’t believe it. I just said, ‘It’s impossible,’ and I said we would go in tomorrow and see.
“But my husband said, ‘No, no no. We’re going in today. It’s real, baby,’ ’’ she said.
When they found out he was right, Gabriel tried to insist the prize was all hers, “but I said, ‘No, no. It’s ours,’ ’’ she said.
She said she and her husband “have been happily married for 19 years,’’ and the first thing the money will buy them is a romantic weekend in Paris this spring without the kids.
It also will pay for college for the kids, two girls, ages 16 and 14, and a 4-year-old boy, and “maybe one day, we’ll get a new house.’’
Once she heard about the windfall, their older daughter asked for a Mercedes. Her youngest just wants Transformers toys.
“The 14-year-old, she doesn’t care. She said, ‘Don’t worry, this [first] million dollars is going to go so fast and you’ll have nothing left,’ ’’ her mom said.
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