$2-Million Spin Brings Woman Lottery Jackpot

A 38-year-old telephone company worker from the California Gold Rush country discovered a rich vein of her own Monday when she became the state lottery’s first $2-million winner in a clamorous wheel-spinning extravaganza in Hollywood.

Linda Scott, a maintenance administrator for Pacific Bell from Calaveras County, clasped her hands to her face and exclaimed, “Oh, God!” Then tears welled in her eyes. “I did know I would win it, I just knew it,” said the ebullient new millionaire.

Scott beat odds of 25 million to 1. She began with the purchase of a $1 instant “scratch off” ticket that paid off $100; then her ticket was among 20 drawn from more than 12,000 of the $100 winners submitted in the first few weeks of the lottery. Finally, in spinning the wheel, she hit one of the 10 slots on the 100-slot wheel marked as a $2-million winner.

When asked what she plans to do with the money, Scott’s reply was instant.

“Spend it!” she said.

First off, Scott will buy a new Mercedes-Benz, then “I’ll just dole it out.”

For a time, it looked like there would be no new millionaire created by the lottery. The first 18 contestants spun the giant Las Vegas-style wheel and came up with a variety of $10,000, $50,000 and $100,000 prizes, but no jackpot. Scott was the 19th finalist to take a turn on a sound stage at the Hollywood Center Studio on Sunset Boulevard. As her husband, Jerry, and her parents, Wanda and Al Silveira of Jackson, looked on from the audience, Scott gave the apparatus a strong jerk and watched spellbound as a little red ball landed in the $2-million slot.

Later Scott quipped that “when First Interstate (Bank) sees my balance over $9 they’ll go crazy.”

Her Luck Is All Good

The lottery has been pure luck all the way for the new millionaire, who will receive $100,000 a year for the next 20 years from the new lottery, minus taxes. A few days after purchasing the $100 winning ticket that got her into Monday’s spinning ceremony, she bought a $500 winner.

Scott resides in the tiny Calaveras County town of Glencoe with her husband, a telephone company engineer. They have one son, 20, who lives in Alaska.

She said she is going to use part of the money for purely utilitarian tasks--clearing brush off property she and her husband own in the picturesque mountain town of Mokelumne Hill, and paving the driveway of their Glencoe home against the coming winter snow.

Glencoe--population 200--can be expected to go wild with Scott’s victory over the lottery odds. Townspeople already honored the big winner with a send-off party when she left for Los Angeles to join the 20 others who took part in a hoopla-filled “Big Spin,” which was taped Monday afternoon and then televised Monday night over a special lottery network.

Welcomed by Cheers

When Scott pulled in the $2-million prize, the studio erupted in cheers, as did a nearby room containing about 200 members of the news media gathered to record the lottery’s first big payoff.

Scott hugged Chuck Woolery, a television game show host who was master of ceremonies for the spin, and then her husband. Soon Scott was clutching a giant cardboard check made out to “California Jackpot Grand Prize Winner.”

The winner grew up in Capitola and graduated from Santa Cruz High School.

Three Californians won $100,000 in the spin-off.

They were Glenda Sue Glass, 37, an unemployed mother of three from San Jose, who says she will buy a Thunderbird and “no more lottery tickets;” William Barlow, 29, a solar heating company executive from Huntington Beach, who will use part of his winnings to start a professional drag racing team, and Lillian Barlow (no relation), 58, a housewife living with her disabled husband in the desert near Palmdale. She says the money will let her “live instead of just exist.” Barlow will buy her husband a motor home and bring her son, whom she has not seen for 13 years, out from Ohio for Christmas.

Deputy Sheriff’s Wife

Among those winning $50,000 in the Big Spin were Valerie Ann Lunceford, 38, a Long Beach cosmetologist and wife of a Los Angeles County deputy sheriff, who hopes to put a down payment on a bigger home; Charles Moore, 33, a Beaumont house painter who also hopes to buy a larger house for his family of four, and Daniel Cruz, 37, of Panorama City, a quality control director for an aircraft products firm who plans to set up a college trust fund for his three children.

Also winning $50,000 Monday were Ben White, 41, a high-rise window washer from Los Angeles, who plans a trip to the Bahamas and then will try to make a down payment on on a house in San Pedro; Abed Jabaieh, 27, a liquor store owner in the Simi Valley, who wants to buy automobiles for his brothers then invest the rest in his business, and Donna Sobb, 31, of Sacramento.

Getting drawn for the big spin turned out to be a bittersweet event for Sobb, 31. Sacramento police spotted her name in the newspaper and arrested her on an outstanding warrant for petty theft. They got her address through the lottery office.

Sobb was arrested on suspicion of shoplifting a blouse from Sears on Jan. 31 and failed to show up for her court date. After her arrest Wednesday, she put up $100 bail and will have her case settled in Sacramento Municipal Court.

Leaving Welfare Rolls

For Sobb, winning the lottery also means she will get off welfare for the first time in 13 years.

Sobb’s winning make her ineligible to receive state aid or food stamps, but Sobb says that’s the best part of winning. “It feels real good. . . . I’m real proud to be able to get off welfare and I hope I’ll never have to go on again,” says the mother of three. “I often wondered if I ever would see this day.”

Sobb will use the money to send herself through cosmetology school, set up college funds for her three sons and send her parents on a cruise.

All winners except the new millionaire were paid their entire winnings on the spot Monday, minus a 20% bite for federal income tax. Scott received her first $100,000 Monday.

The 20 jackpot finalists who spun the wheel Monday were chosen in two preliminary drawings from among the first 12,500 persons who won $100 in the instant “scratch-off” game.

Security Forces

As a contingent of about 100 relatives and friends hollered and clapped from bleacher seats, lottery security officials stood guard against any interference with spin paraphernalia.

Paramedics also were on hand in case the excitement proved too much for any of the contestants, who ranged in age from 21 to 71. They weren’t needed.

The wheel contained 100 slots--40 marked $10,000, 30 marked $50,000, 20 marked $100,000, and 10 marked $2 million.

Since it got under way Oct. 3, more than 240 million tickets have been sold, lottery director Mark Michalko said. “With 370 million of the nearly 400 million tickets . . . already out of our warehouses and into the lottery pipeline, it is evident that the game will end before the seven to eight weeks we earlier projected,” Michalko said.

A third drawing of 10 names took place on Friday. They’ll go for the $2-million jackpot in another televised spin next Monday. After that, preliminary drawings and grand prize spins will be held weekly until 160 players drawn from the ranks of $100 instant winners get their shot at the big money.