Lotto Winner Plans to Stay on the Job

With many of the trappings of the rich life his for the taking, from penthouses to Rolls Royces to round-the-world cruises, Tony Mastello on Monday redeemed the state lottery ticket that won him $7.6 million and headed back to work at his print shop.

He will go on working because he likes to, he said.

“I don’t have to do anything, but I like what I’m doing,” said Mastellos, 61, owner of Tony’s Graphics and Printing. “It’s a comfortable, easy business.”

“Right now, my feeling is if I go traveling, playing golf, I can’t do this every day. I need something to do. I enjoy what I do. I can’t see giving it up. Old habits are hard to break. It’s actually hard to comprehend that I don’t have to work.”

Mastellos said he tossed and turned for most of Sunday night after he learned he held the winning number, pondering whether to close the shop he has owned since 1965. Along with his satisfaction with his work, “I still have a responsibility to my clients,” he said.

A regular lottery player who bought $5 worth of tickets every Friday, Mastellos said he plans to use his winnings to fund the college educations of his nine grandchildren.

Over the next 20 years, he will receive annual payments of $389,000, reduced to $280,080 by withholding to cover part of his federal income tax. There is no state income tax on lottery winnings, and at the current top federal income-tax rate of more than 39%, he will clear about $233,000 per year.

Mastellos bought his winning Quick Pick Super Lotto ticket at a 7-Eleven store at 1133 E. Broadway.

The winning numbers--25, 29, 32, 33, 36 and 39--were announced Saturday night, but Mastellos did not know the results of the drawing until he saw the winning number in The Times the next day.

When asked whether buying Super Lotto tickets was the most fortuitous move of his life, Mastellos paused and responded, “No.”

“Having five daughters was the luckiest thing I ever did.”