Hers was the voice that could tell you the numbers that meant you didn’t have to go to work the next day — or ever again.
And now Yolanda Vega, the longtime face of the New York Lottery, has retired after more than three decades of helping others do the same.
Known for her trademark introduction — “I’m Yooooolaaaaaaaanda Vega!” — and for being the face of many life-changing checks, the Empire State icon’s last day was on Monday after 32 years on the job.
“We truly hit the jackpot by having her as a part of the New York Lottery family,” the state’s lottery office wrote on Twitter.
A collusion of caffeine and confidence led Vega to her signature sign-on, she told Binghamton Fox affiliate WICZ in 2018. One day, six months into the job, she recalled, “I came in and I had drank a lot of Puerto Rican espresso and I was pumped up.”
“I said ‘With the New York Lottery I’m YOLAAANDA VEGAAAA.’ And they said ‘Woah, what are you doing?’ And I said ‘That’s who I am and I’m proud of who I am.’ ”
While Vega was perhaps most often seen on TV sets across the state, announcing the winning numbers from a bank of lottery ball machines on an evening broadcast, she also delivered the checks.
In that role, Vega traveled the state, presenting larger-than-life checks with larger-than-life winnings, making regular New Yorkers into millionaires.
“Yolanda was the master of that,” New York State Gaming Commission spokesperson Brad Maione told the Post Wednesday. “She defined the role.”
In her 2018 interview, Vega said making winners comfortable as she handed them a check in front of TV cameras was an important part of her job.
“I find out how they feel about winning, what led up to the winning,” she told WICZ. “I find out details about them and it makes them feel comfortable because they’re looking at me. Don’t look at the audience, don’t look at the camera, just talk to me.”
The New York Gaming Commission said Wednesday that, due to changes in the state agencies that ran the lottery since Vega’s start in 1990, it was hard to provide an exact number for how much money she gave away on the state’s behalf.
Commission officials said that over the past two decades, however, a conservative estimate of the checks Vega delivered would total over $4 billion.
“It’s the end of an era. There will never be another Yolanda Vega in the business,” Maione said. “Her ebullient nature, coupled with playful personality made Yolanda a national icon. We will miss her presence.”