New York Lottery Scratch-Off Delivers $1M Win to Dog Lover

A lucky ticket from a Cheektowaga convenience store just turned into a seven-figure payday. James Renzi walked away with a $1 million prize. A New York Lottery scratch-off ticket matched him with the top prize on a dog-themed instant game called Must Love Dogs. It’s the kind of win that turns a routine errand into a life-changing afternoon.

A $1,000,000 Prize From a Dog-Themed Ticket

Renzi bought his winning ticket at Oasis Convenience on Harlem Road in Cheektowaga. The town sits in Erie County, just outside Buffalo. The New York Lottery confirmed the win on July 14 and named the $1,000,000 Must Love Dogs game as the source of his prize. Renzi may already count himself as a dog person, but a payout like this would make anyone a fan.

He chose the lump sum option instead of the annuity. That choice is common among big lottery winners who want their money now rather than spread across years. After required withholdings, Renzi took home $442,681. It’s a real cut from the advertised $1 million. But the win still marks a massive shift for someone who bought a single ticket at a local store.

The lottery also confirmed that two more $1 million top prizes remain unclaimed in the Must Love Dogs game. So the next big New York Lottery scratch-off winner might be reading this story right now. They just don’t know it yet, and the ticket could already be sitting on a nearby store shelf. Games built around a single theme like this one often stay in circulation for months, which means the odds of a repeat headline stay high.

New York Lottery Scratch-Off Wins Keep Piling Up

Renzi’s win isn’t an isolated story this year. It follows a string of major scratcher payouts across the state, and the pattern shows no sign of slowing down. Weeks earlier, Christiane Butcher, a Brooklyn resident, claimed a $3 million prize from the 100Xtrascratch-off game. Like Renzi, she opted for the lump sum and collected $1,242,851 after withholdings rather than waiting on the full annuity.

Before that, another player claimed a separate $3 million prize in June from a different scratch-off game. That winner also chose the lump sum route over annual payments. Three seven-figure wins inside a matter of weeks is a notable run, even for a lottery system that regularly produces big winners. New York has run instant games for decades, but the frequency of these payouts still stands out.

Each of these stories starts the same way. An ordinary ticket gets bought at a neighborhood store, and nobody involved expects the outcome. Renzi’s win happened at Oasis Convenience. Butcher bought her ticket at a shop in Brooklyn, and the June winner picked theirs up somewhere else across the state. New York’s retail network hands out thousands of chances every single day, and this year has delivered more than its usual share of jackpot moments.

More Chances Still on the Shelf

For everyday players, the appeal of games like Must Love Dogs goes beyond the theme. A colorful, novelty-driven scratcher can feel like a low-stakes purchase. But the prize structure behind it is anything but small, and Renzi’s win proves it. Every New York Lottery scratch-off ticket on the rack carries that same small chance, no matter how playful the artwork looks.

Two more $1 million prizes are still sitting unclaimed in the Must Love Dogs game. That gives New York Lottery scratch-off players good reason to check their local retailers before those tickets disappear from shelves. The odds on any single ticket remain long, but somebody in Erie County just proved they aren’t impossible. Until those remaining prizes surface, every unscratched Must Love Dogs ticket carries a small piece of that same possibility.