TRENTON (Jan. 26, 2018) – Nicholas Fierro, retired New Jersey teacher from Totowa, is not inexperienced at winning the Lottery. In 1991, he and 38 of his fellow faculty members at a Paterson, NJ elementary school shared a $90 million New York State Lottery jackpot winning ticket. The group, officially named K-39, claimed one of nine winning tickets for a special drawing that was held by the Lottery, making their share of the jackpot $10 million. The fortunate group received modest quarterly checks for 20 years about which Nicholas said, "The prize money helped me put my children through college and helped the other group members in many ways."

Nicholas now plays just $2-4 on Lottery games with the largest jackpot each day. His $4 Powerball ticket purchase on Wednesday, September 6 paid off handsomely when his five numbers matched the white balls drawn winning the $1,000,000 prize. "I am going to consider carefully how to handle the winnings and God bless the USA," he said. Nicholas purchased his lucky ticket at Union Food Stores on 357 Union Blvd., Totowa.

Our next winner, Michael Jakubowycz of Piscataway, is no stranger to large lottery wins and lucky numbers either. On July 17, 2011, Michael hit the jackpot on Florida’s Fantasy 5 game for $169,975 when he matched five out of five with the numbers 03, 14, 15, 32, and 34.

After moving to New Jersey earlier this year, Michael kept playing his favorite numbers in our own Jersey Cash 5 game. On Friday, November 10, he checked the numbers online after the drawing and started laughing to himself in disbelief. Once again, Michael managed to match five out of five with the same numbers, 03, 14, 15, 32, and 34. Michael's prize this time was for $272,427.

Michael, now a two-time jackpot winner over different states, joked about taking his lucky numbers to even more states to test their luck. Michael’s lucky retailer is Stop & Shop #897, 581 Stelton Rd., Piscataway.