Schenectady, NY – Fifty-eight-year-old Mary Harlan of Fairmount, Onondaga County, is New York’s newest Lottery Millionaire. The part-time cashier at the Home Depot in Fairmount today collected her oversized prize check worth at least $1,000,000 at the all new Lottery Players Pavilion located at the former Paisano’s Restaurant on the grounds of the Great New York State Fair. As a top prize winner of the Lottery’s Win $1,000 a Week for Life instant game, Harlan is guaranteed to receive a minimum prize payout of $1,000,000.

The Lottery’s Newest Millionaire: “Toots”

“I feel like I’m walking on a cloud,” said Harlan, nicknamed “Toots” for her childhood affinity for Tootsie Roll candies. The mother of one and grandmother of three said, “It’s still not real to me.”

Harlan said her husband of 31 years, Carl, 71, purchased the pair’s winning ticket at the Byrne Dairy on West Genesee St. in Syracuse on July 14, 2008 during a routine newspaper run.

“He’s in there every day for the paper,” explained Harlan. “Only this time, he decided to throw in a Lottery ticket to spice things up; and did he ever!”

The couple plans to make the most of their $1,000 a week prize. “I’m going to get that big TV I’ve always wanted and maybe we’ll play golf a little more often, if that’s possible,” she said.

Harlan said she waited until July 16 to claim her prize at the Lottery’s Customer Service Center in Syracuse to let the “shock and numbness wear off.”

The $2 Win $1,000 a Week for Life instant ticket guarantees a minimum prize payout of $1,000,000. Harlan will receive her prize in quarterly payments for life. Her initial prize check will total $17,000, less required tax withholdings, netting her $11,585. Subsequent quarterly checks will total $13,000 before taxes or $8,859 net every three months.

The Lottery’s New Look: 3,000 Square Feet

Harlan accepted her prize check from the New York Lottery’s Yolanda Vega prior to a ribbon cutting ceremony at the Lottery’s new 3,000 square foot Players Pavilion at the Empire State Expo. The Pavilion, which is located in the space formerly occupied by Paisano’s Restaurant in the “Times Square” section of the Fairgrounds, serves as the Lottery’s retail center during the 21-day Great New York State Fair.

The converted space features eight Lottery terminals to accommodate the sale of instant tickets as well as tickets for the Lottery’s daily drawings and jackpot games. The all-new Quick Draw Café located inside the Pavilion features a bank of big screen monitors and café tables. The space will also serve as the gathering place and drawing site for a variety of ticket-based promotions scheduled to take place during the Fair, including daily second-chances drawings, Lottery trivia contests, a merchandise exchange; and the widely popular Labor Day Drawing to award four Grand Prizes of $25,000 each and 15 other chances to win a quantity of the Lottery’s newest animal-themed ticket, Peng Win.

The New York Lottery contributed nearly $2.6 billion to help support education in New York State on revenues of $7.549 billion in fiscal year 2007-08 - - a profit margin of 34.3%. The New York Lottery continues to be North America’s largest and most profitable Lottery, earning over $34.2 billion in education support statewide since its founding over 40 years ago.