ete Sullivan was born into a family of gamblers. His grandmother was known as the “Lotto Queen” in her neighborhood of Greenpoint, Brooklyn. “She went to all the bingo halls, played scratchers and always played different numbers,” says Sullivan. “And that got distilled down to my father and his brothers and sisters.”
When his dad, known as “Big Pete,” became the coach for his grammar school basketball team, the duo would usually be late for games because the elder Sullivan had to get his numbers in. “For me, there was always a major inconvenience in our life around the lottery,” says Sullivan. “I grew up just being annoyed with the lottery.”
But in December 2013, the inconvenience of his father’s lottery habit gave Sullivan an idea to profit from the everyman dream to get rich quick. The family was driving to a Christmas party when Big Pete said he had to make a stop at a bodega. He came out with a two-liter bottle of Coca-Cola and a lottery ticket in his pocket.