Lottery Winner Gets $6 Million Surprise

(Nov. 11) -- Retired corrections officer Norris Henry thought he had scored a nice five-digit, second-place lottery win.

He thought wrong.

His ticket was actually a first-place, seven-digit winner -- worth $6 million.


"I was expecting a nice prize, but not $6 million," he told the New York Lottery.

Henry, 76, spent 30 years working for the New York City Department of Correction until 2000. He lives in Westbury, N.Y., on Long Island. He's played the lottery for more than a quarter century, often using numbers his wife, Eleanor, sees in her dreams.

When numbers were drawn for a Lotto jackpot Oct. 14, he thought he had matched five. Instead, he matched all six. The lottery said the second place winner in the drawing took home $39,638.

Henry called the win "like getting the best piece of cake in the world. There's nothing else like it. It's just a wonderful feeling."

Now he and his wife will be able to make a few more dreams come true.

"I'm going to enjoy sitting on a sunny beach somewhere and sitting in my new home in front of my new TV," Henry said.