Twin Tricked Newscasters : Lottery Winner’s Brother Pulled Off the Big Switch

Saturday evening’s late newscasts supposedly showed California’s newest millionaire back at home, laughing and having champagne poured over his head.

A tired, smiling young man identified as Eric Daily appeared on television screens throughout Los Angeles as he celebrated with friends in his Thousand Oaks apartment. Hours earlier, in Sacramento, Daily, a 24-year-old grocery clerk, had spun the wheel in the California Lottery’s Big Spin and walked away with the $6.3-million jackpot, the largest in the game’s history.

But the TV celebration was not what it seemed.

Identical Twin

The real Eric Daily had spent the night in Sacramento. The “Eric Daily” who had celebrated in Thousand Oaks was really his identical twin brother, Marc.

“I never thought it would get on the 11 o’clock news,” an only slightly reticent Marc Daily said Wednesday. “I figured they’d find out that Eric was still in Sacramento.”

They didn’t find out, however, until Eric confessed to the hoax Wednesday.

“Marc told me the whole story,” Eric said. “He wasn’t embarrassed at all. He thought it was funny.”

The brothers explained that Marc, a Camarillo optician, had joined about 15 of Eric’s friends at Eric’s apartment to watch a replay of the Big Spin on local television. The television crews heard that Eric was scheduled to arrive home that evening, and, when they showed up at his apartment, one of Eric’s friends talked Marc into the ruse. Marc quickly dressed in Eric’s bathrobe and slippers.

Gifts Offered

The fraternal impostor told reporters that the first thing he would do with the money would be to give his loving brother, Marc, $1 million, and then buy a red Lamborghini sports car.

“The whole thing was spontaneous,” Marc said. “I just sort of fell into it.”

The twins are often mistaken for each other, said their father, Don. When they were infants, he said, their parents painted Eric’s toes blue and Marc’s toes red to distinguish them.

“You couldn’t tell them apart,” Don Daily said. “I’d see one of them doing something bad, and he’d tell me he was the other one.”

Nevertheless, Eric and Marc insisted that they never played such tricks on anyone outside the family--until the weekend. But, “if something like this arises again, . . . yeah, I’d do it,” Marc said.

As for Eric, he said he may, indeed, give his prankster brother some money. “But not a million dollars.”