Winner's Mom Predicted $1M Lottery Ticket

Joyce Derenzis of Harrison has claimed the top prize of $1 million on the Wheel of Fortune Scratch-off game in a big-check handoff today at Trotta’s West Street Pharmacy on Halstead Avenue.

Derenzis, a former bartender and waitress who left her job seven years ago to care for her mother, says she plays the New York Lottery once in a while.

Lottery officials repeated her story in a press release after today's ceremony:

“I was with my mother who has Alzheimer’s. She was talking to me and thought my birthday was February 12. Then she looked at me and told me I was going to win a lot of money.”

Derenzis then felt like she had to play. “I walked in the store so I could play 2-1-2. As soon as I looked at the tickets I saw the Wheel of Fortune game. That’s my mother’s favorite TV show and I knew I had to get it.”

After purchasing two tickets, she went home, “I had to go and take care of my mom so I gave the tickets to my boyfriend, Vincent, and told him to scratch them.”

While she was in the room Vincent opened the door, “He couldn’t talk. I looked at the ticket and thought it was a mistake. I went back to the store and had the clerk scan it. She came around the counter and hugged me.”

Derenzis has chosen to receive her $1 million prize in a one-time lump sum payment netting her $536,058 after required withholdings, lottery officials said.

Derenzis said she has no plans yet for the half-a-million because it doesn’t seem real, “I can’t think. I’m blank. But I do know I want to help my kids and the humane shelter, I am a big animal lover.”

Derenzis is the 22nd New York Lottery player to win a prize of $1,000,000 or more in 2016, officials said.