Officials Get a Slight Break From Lottery Fever

The frantic pace of the California Lottery eased Saturday, but daily sales in the Anaheim region reached an estimated 800,000, bringing to 6 million the number of tickets sold in the first three days of the lottery in the region.

More than 30 million $1 lottery tickets were sold statewide during the game’s first 36 hours, bringing total revenues far in excess of the previous record for the entire first week of play in any other lottery, officials said.

Business at the Anaheim office, which handles Orange, San Diego, San Bernardino, Riverside and Imperial counties, was slower but smoother Saturday, said James Braxton, regional director.

“We haven’t had as many orders as yesterday,” Braxton said, “but we have a better system, much more efficient.”

Employees worked late Friday night, preparing about 150 orders for Saturday morning.

“By getting ahead last night,” Braxton said, “we were able to keep ahead all day.”

Merchants placed about 125 orders Saturday, with the average purchase between 8 and 12 packs of 500 tickets, he said. The only time a line of merchants seeking more tickets formed at the Anaheim office was when the center first opened, Braxton said.

There will be 2 1/2 million more tickets available in Anaheim by Monday morning, Braxton said. “We’ve had a nice mellow group of winners (on Saturday),” he said, including five $5,000 tickets. (Winners statewide submitted 515 claims for $5,000 prizes, the largest instant payoff in the “scratch-off” ticket game.)

It also was much easier to reach the office by telephone, said Jerry Webster, a lottery supervisor. “We’ve even had open lines from time to time. It’s not so intense.”

Webster attributed the lower figures Saturday to the fact that many merchants did not realize that the state offices would be open. “Most of the business today and yesterday afternoon was from people who were somewhat conservative in their estimates of how far sales would go” during the first two days of the lottery, Webster said. “They did not anticipate quite the volume they had.”

No robberies or security problems were reported to the Anaheim office, according to California State Lottery Agent Al Romero. About eight winners called or came in to the office because in their excitement to scratch the cards to reveal the dollar amounts, they had also scratched off the numbers at the bottom of the cards, which may void the card, Romero said. Such cards are not automatically voided, he said, but they must be verified by the lottery’s state headquarters in Sacramento.