Anaheim : Tour Guide Ecstatic at $50,000 Lottery Win

Mark Loehr, 26, of Anaheim said he was in shock Tuesday after winning $50,000 in the new state lottery game called the California Gold Rush.

“I couldn’t believe it. It changed my whole day,” he said. “It always seems to happen to the other guy . . . but it happened to me!”

A native of Missouri, the Show Me State, an ecstatic Loehr said: “I really showed them, didn’t I?”

Tuesday started off just as any other day for the young tour guide who works for an Anaheim tour service. As he walked the few blocks from his apartment to work at about 8:30 a.m., Loehr made a routine detour into the Circle K store on Orangewood Avenue in Anaheim.

“I went in, like I do every morning, to buy a pack of cigarettes, a cup of coffee and a couple of lottery tickets.” Instead of walking out of the store a loser, as he has done countless other times, he left an instant winner.

Loehr, who admitted to a $15-a-week lottery ticket habit, said he usually buys them from his favorite cashier, Emily. “I usually say, ‘Give me the big one, Emily, and I’ll split it with you.’ But this morning Emily wasn’t there, and I just bought two.”

The celebration began immediately. He took the day off from work. “I called my fiancee (Linda Bradley) and we went out in Newport Beach partying.” But the real high point of his newly found wealth will come later this week, he said. “We’re taking a cruise Friday on the Caribbean. We’re thinking about getting married while we are on the cruise,” about two months earlier than they had planned.

Lottery officials said the new game, which began Monday, offers 325 million tickets and includes a provision called the “doubler.” Under the rules of the game, a ticket holder can double his money if the ticket has two matching amounts and a gold nugget, winning up to $50,000, said John Schade, director of public affairs at the Sacramento lottery headquarters.

While Loehr does not qualify for the Big Spin (only ticket-holders with three “entry” slots appearing on the card are eligible in the California Gold Rush game), he said he is a winner for the first time in his life. And he won’t stop now.

“Heck no! I’ve got to keep pushing my luck. I was thinking about going to Vegas earlier in the day,” he said, adding that he changed his mind. The cruise and honeymoon will be enough, he said. And today, he said, he planned to go to work.