Hey, it could happen to Rico, dammit

Paul Grondahl has an article at TimesUnion.com about one lucky sumbitch:

Mike Barth was waiting to buy a Mega Millions ticket at Coulson's in Albany, New York last week, when another man cut in front of him and bought a ticket. "Someone reached in front of me," the 63-year-old Bethlehem man said. "Actually cut in front of me to buy a ticket. I thought about saying something, but let it slide."
Barth bought the next ticket, the nation's only jackpot winner for Friday's drawing. His silence was worth $319 million.

On Thursday, Barth and six co-workers met the public for the first time. The other winners are John Hilton, 57, of North Greenbush; Gabrielle Mahar, 29, of Colonie; John Kutey, 54, of Green Island; Tracy Sussman, 41, of Colonie; Kristin Baldwin, 42, of Clifton Park; and Leon Peck, 62, of Johnstown. They will each receive $19.1 million after taxes.

The identities of the seven newest multimillionaires, state IT workers from the Homes and Community Renewal offices who will split the winnings from Friday's drawing, remained a secret for days. The winners work in the information technology unit of the merged organization that consists of all the state's major housing and community renewal agencies. Its headquarters are in the nine-story Hampton Plaza at the foot of State Street and Broadway, around the corner from Coulson's, the Broadway newsstand and variety store where the ticket was sold.
Just down the hill from the state Capitol, where news leaks are a way of life, co-workers who knew who the winners were managed to keep mum on their identities. The winners asked for privacy and colleagues closed ranks, rebuffing attempts of the media to learn their names.
The winning ticket, a Quick Pick, was confirmed, signed and verified late Monday at the lottery offices in downtown Schenectady. The seven had the lone winning ticket: 22, 24, 31, 52, 54 and Mega Ball 4. The winners have sixty days from Monday, when they claimed the prize, to decide if they want the money in annuity payments over 25 years, or the lump-sum option, which would give them slightly more than $202.8 million before taxes, split seven ways. After taxes, calculated at 25 percent, or $50.7 million, to the federal government and 8.97 percent, or $18.2 million, to the state, the winners would divide about $134 million, or roughly $19.1 million each.
The odds against winning the Mega Millions is 1 in 176 million, far greater than the odds of being struck by lightning this year in the U.S., which is about 1 in 750,000, according to the National Weather Service. Another way of thinking of the long odds of holding the winning Mega Millions ticket is this: It is equivalent of one second, a single snap of fingers, in slightly more than 5 1/2 years of one's lifetime.