Couple nets $326m jackpot

 retired school principal is the sole winner of the $326m (€277m) Mega Millions jackpot drawn on November 4, the biggest prize in New York Lottery history, officials announced.

Harold Diamond, 80, of the Sullivan County town of Wurtsboro, said he bought the ticket at a highway service centre where he had stopped at his wife’s insistence to wait out a storm on Election Day.

As they ate lunch at the Valero on Route 302 in Middletown, Diamond noticed the flashing Mega Millions sign and decided to spend $10 for 10 sets of Quick Pick numbers.

“I put the ticket in my wallet and forgot about it,” Diamond said in a statement released by New York Lottery.

“I went to play golf the next day and the guys in the clubhouse were talking about the jackpot-winning ticket someone bought at a Valero on Route 302, and I thought, wait a minute — I bought a ticket there last night!”

Diamond said he dashed home, checked his tickets and found he had the winner.

“I was in a dither, a real daze,” said Diamond, who retired as principal of George L . Cook Elementary School in Monticello in 1995.

The New York Lottery’s Yolanda Vega presented a giant ceremonial check to Diamond. He has chosen to take the cash value of the annuitised prize, which comes to about $130m after taxes.

Diamond says his plans for the money include helping family and “giving back to the local community”.

He said he owes his good fortune to his wife, Carol, a retired Goshen High School maths teacher.