A Good Guy Wins : $6.3-Million Spin Makes Clerk a Lottery Symbol

“What we’re selling is a dream.”

Bill Seaton, director of public relations for California Lottery

State lottery officials had heard the joke. People were saying that to win the lottery you had to be an illegal alien or owe child support.

And there seemed to be some truth to it. After Jose Caballero won $2 million, he was found to be living in the United States illegally and was deported to Mexico. A Sacramento woman was arrested on a petty theft warrant after her name appeared in a newspaper story on lottery winners. In the lottery’s first four months, more than 300 ticket holders had $500,000 in winnings withheld by state and county authorities for past-due support payments and court judgments.

All this publicity came at a time when the state was spending $8.5 million in advertising to promote the lottery. Sour jokes weren’t helping the game’s image.

Then along came Eric Daily.

On a Saturday afternoon two weeks ago, the 24-year-old grocery clerk from Thousand Oaks hit a $6.3-million jackpot, the largest in the lottery’s short history. Daily was handsome, witty and law-abiding. He was the boy next door and he loved to talk. He was an advertiser’s dream.

The Ideal Spokesman

“It’s not up to us to judge people,” said Bill Seaton, director of public relations for the California Lottery. “But Eric, being the clean-cut, typical blue-collar worker, was the ideal. He was articulate, and from that standpoint he was good at telling the media our story. We looked at him and said, ‘Hey, we’ve got something here.’ ”

Less than an hour after the spin, lottery officials scrambled to put together a barnstorming promotional tour through California: five days of interviews with newspapers, television stations and radio shows in Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, San Francisco, San Diego and Palm Springs.

The lottery had a new symbol, an ordinary, decent young man who had won riches beyond his wildest dreams. Eric Daily had become, if only by chance, the centerpiece of the state’s campaign to separate Californians from their dollar bills.

TUESDAY: ‘The phone’s been driving me crazy.’ Eric Daily sits at an Art Deco bar on the 12th floor of the Hotel Hollywood. It’s nearing midnight as he sips a double Scotch and lights another Winston 100.

“I quit smoking for a year and a half before all this happened,” Daily says.

Only three days have passed since he spun the lottery’s Big Spin wheel and watched the ball drop into the jackpot slot.

An avid penny-ante poker player, Daily spent a week of sleepless nights before the Big Spin pacing the floor, praying and drinking shots of Jack Daniel’s. He didn’t get any sleep the night he won, either. Sunday evening, some 24 hours later, he had stayed up late shooting pool and drinking beers with some buddies at Corrigan’s Cowboy Bar & Grill in Thousand Oaks.

Monday morning he was awakened by a barrage of telephone calls--some from friends and reporters, but mostly from real estate brokers, investment counselors and assorted others proposing investment schemes.

Hoping to Relax

Now, late on Tuesday night, he’s hoping to relax for a few hours before the promotional tour begins at 7 the next morning.

“Actually I’m glad we’re going on this tour, because I can get away from the apartment,” he says. “The phone’s been driving me crazy. Every time you hang it up it rings again. We had an answering machine, but that broke down.”

By 1 a.m. the hotel bar is deserted. Daily is hungry, but he doesn’t have any money. A reporter buys him an omelet and a glass of milk at a Denny’s across the street.

“I’m not like the Kennedys. You know, people who are used to having lots of money. I’m just a regular Joe Schmo who had $6 million dumped in his lap.” Daily leans back in a beige vinyl booth in the corner. “I’m used to a certain life style. I’ll still be shooting pool in slime-ball bars and eating breakfast at Denny’s.”

Of course, Daily has given some thought to being rich. He hasn’t made any investment plans yet. That will come later, after all the commotion has died down. But he has had visions of a new Eric Daily, dressed in a red velvet smoking jacket, lounging on the sun deck of an expansive Westlake Island home as ducks paddle by.

On Saturday he planned to buy a Mercedes-Benz, but by Tuesday he wants a Corvette. There will be a trip to Tahiti. And, after that, days spent bicycling, playing golf and basketball, shooting pool and maybe working out at a spa. When spring fashions arrive in the stores, he’ll shop for a new wardrobe.

“You dream about the house you’re going to live in and the car you’re going to drive. It’s easy to spend 3 or 4 million,” he says. “It’s not going to change me.

“Oh, well, some things will be upgraded.”

Daily is probably a typical lottery player. Although state statistics show that 75% of all Californians have played the lottery at least once, officials say they believe that male blue-collar workers are the ones who play it loyally. And so far they have played it often. Just four months into the lottery, more than a billion tickets have been sold.

Lottery officials knew the game would be popular with Californians. An apple waiting to be plucked, as Seaton described it. Nevertheless, they also believed from the beginning that advertising and public relations were crucial to the game’s success. Almost $22.5 million was set aside to promote the game during its first year.

“The goal is not to win over those people who are against the lottery,” Seaton said. “We know there are people who are morally opposed, and you’re not going to sell them. The real purpose is to get those who are playing occasionally to play a lot more.”

Three-Pronged Attack

Seaton explained that the state has used a three-pronged advertising attack. First there is the “educational” program to advertise the game and its rules. Then there is “proceeds awareness,” publicizing the fact that 34% of lottery proceeds go to education. Then there is “winner awareness,” and that was where Daily fit in.

“A nice lad who was stocking apples, and look at him now,” Seaton said.

The winning ticket, which Daily bought with $1 of his $10 Christmas bonus from Vons, will net the young man an annual check of $252,600 for 20 years. Overnight he went from worrying about waking up in time for work to considering studying for a real estate license so that he can personally invest his winnings.

“We want to go out and show the public that they can win the big money,” Seaton said. “Who knows, maybe next time you may be Eric.”

WEDNESDAY: ‘OK, this is jerk No. 1. I’m starting a list.’ The telephone rings shortly after 7 a.m. The hotel desk has forgotten to give Daily a wake-up call, and now “The Michael Jackson Show” is on the line, waiting for a telephone interview. Seaton is in the lobby, waiting to start the tour. Daily rubs the sleep from his eyes and launches into the first of 22 interviews he will give over the next four days.

Half an hour later and halfway across town, Daily sips coffee before an interview at the KIIS radio studio. Margaret Romero, a lottery publicist, pulls him aside. Try to work in ticket sales, she whispers in his ear. And don’t forget the benefit to public education.

“The $6-million man!” disc jockey Bruce Vidal bellows into the microphone.

Describes Offers

Daily describes some of the investment offers he has received. A woman wanted him to invest in a coin-operated laundry in San Luis Obispo. A man had invented a cup with two straws in the center designed to help people who have trouble swallowing pills. Another man asked Daily to finance a trip to Saudi Arabia, where he hoped to find an oil sheik willing to finance a $500-million redevelopment plan for downtown Bakersfield.

“I said, ‘OK, this is jerk No. 1. I’m starting a list,’ ” Daily recounts. “But I’d rather hear from someone weird like that than all the investors.”

From the radio station, Daily is driven across town to the KABC television studios for an appearance on “A. M. Los Angeles.” As he walks in, a cameraman approaches.

“Excuse me,” the man says. “You don’t know me, but I live in Westlake Village. When you worked at Vons I used to buy apples from you.”

As they wait for the show to begin, Romero tells Daily it is good to be nervous. It will make him appear energetic on screen. Sit forward, she tells him.

“I’m worried about how I’m going to come across,” he says. “I don’t want to sit up there and pick my nose like a baseball player.”

Speaks Clearly

Daily’s segment comes near the end of the show, after a viewer selected by mail demonstrates her chili recipe. Steve Edwards, the host, asks him several questions. Daily is more interested in co-host Cristina Ferrare Thomopoulos, but he sits forward, speaks clearly and looks animated. The director is pleased. As Daily leaves the studio, a woman pats his shoulder.

“Maybe some of your luck will rub off on me,” she says.

The next stop is KNX, an all-news radio station. Along the way, the car stops at a light beside a pickup truck packed with crates of fruit and vegetables. Daily shrinks into his seat, twisting his face in mock horror and making the sign of the cross.

“Oh, God! Produce!” he yells. “Get that stuff away from me. I never want to see it again.”

A week before the Big Spin, Daily had informed his boss at Vons that if the wheel stopped on anything with six zeros, he would not be back. Daily officially quit his job as a produce clerk the day after he won. Yet he speaks reverently of the techniques of fruit display and trimming wet, bunched goods.

“Being a produce clerk is definitely an unknown art form. Stacking those apples is hard.”

After the radio interview, Romero picks up the tab at a Hamburger Hamlet.

“All of a sudden you win 6 million bucks and everybody wants to buy you lunch,” says Daily. He has not paid for a meal since he won. “I feel guilty. I feel like I should be the one throwing around the credit cards.”

A traffic jam on the San Diego Freeway makes the party miss its flight to Santa Barbara. Seaton rushes to a telephone. Daily slumps in a plastic chair.

A television segment has to be canceled. But once Daily reaches Santa Barbara, there is time to go to KTMS, a local radio station. Daily gives a taped interview in a cluttered storage room that is a universe away from the high-tech TV studios of Los Angeles. Ten minutes later, in his final interview of the day, Daily talks with a local newspaper reporter who later confesses, “I have to hate anyone who’s that rich.”

At dinner, in what will become a running gag, Seaton attempts to pay the tab with a $252,600 check he is carrying for Daily. The waiter deadpans, “I’ll have to ask the manager.”

Word spreads that Daily is in the restaurant. Waiters, managers and patrons stop to congratulate him.

Bright colors flash on the television screen as snappy, upbeat music plays in the background. Men and women scratch their lottery cards and exult in victory, arms thrust in the air. A government jingle fills the air.

Find three of a kind--count yourself lucky . Here’s the ticket to make you smile. It’s new and fun.

Voice-over:

Now you can win the multimillion-dollar growing grand prize or up to $25,000 instantly.

More singing.

It’s a good feeling for a lot of good reasons.

The last image on the screen is the green-and-gold lottery “L.” Under it reads: “Our schools win, too.”

This television advertisement for the California Lottery’s third game, like all of the lottery’s commercials, stops short of showing people waist-deep in money or sitting on yachts.

“We look at it as more of a game than gambling,” Seaton said. “In our advertising and promotion, we try to emphasize that this is fun and for a good cause.”

But the message is clear. They are selling a dream.

Of course that dream doesn’t always--or even very often--come true. A Fresno couple who described their monthly income as “zilch” papered their kitchen wall with more than 2,500 losing lottery tickets. Law enforcement officials are investigating reports that they were purchased with Supplemental Security Income meant for the support of their mentally retarded son. Lottery critics claim the people who can least afford it are spending their money on lottery tickets.

‘I See the Good Side’

“We say, ‘Use the same kind of money you use to go to the movies or to the roller rink,’ ” Seaton says. “We don’t think a lot of people are starving because they are blowing it all on the lottery.

“I see the good side of it. I see people winning every week, changing their lives, the families laughing and hugging. I’m seeing that and I’m not seeing horror stories of families going broke betting on the lottery.”

Daily, a Christian who rarely attends church, is similarly philosophical about the moral aspects of the game.

“People put themselves in their own situations,” he says. “If people are in a welfare situation, they shouldn’t be buying tickets. If they do, that’s their own fault. Then again, you can’t blame them. One lucky shot and it could change their lives.”

THURSDAY: ‘I can’t just blow all this money.’ Daily awakes in San Francisco, does an 8 a.m. radio interview by telephone and is driven by limousine to television station KPIX. After a taped interview he rushes to radio station KGO. This interviewer gushes: “Gosh, you must feel some sort of deep, profound feeling of how your life has changed.”

By now Daily is calmer when facing a microphone. “It gives you a sense of responsibility,” he says. “A different kind of responsibility than I’m used to. I can’t just blow all this money. I have to invest.”

At Fog City Diner, a trendy restaurant in the financial district, a television crew films Daily climbing out of the long, black car followed by his three official escorts. The maitre d’ does not gush upon being informed that a new millionaire wants lunch.

“Does he have a reservation?” the headwaiter hisses.

Daily does, and the party is shown to a table. A steady stream of patrons stops by.

“Are you married?” a woman asks. “For $6 million you ought to be able to get someone pretty good-looking. Christie Brinkley or somebody.”

Daily does not have a steady girlfriend. Is he worried about women going after his money?

“I guess you can either go back to the church to find a girl or marry a friend, someone you knew before,” he says. “Or you can luck out and meet someone who doesn’t know you won.”

After lunch, the check is, of course, shown to the waiter. As Daily leaves the restaurant, several people applaud.

The remainder of the day goes as planned. Daily remains cheerful on camera, but he is obviously tiring of being asked how it felt when he won. Among his answers over the four days:

“I was really surprised.”

“I was jumping up and down.”

“There’s just so much elation.”

“There are so many things going through your mind. I really can’t describe it.”

A TV soundman playing with a calculator announces that Daily will earn $4,857.69 a week, $693.95 a day and $28.91 an hour until 2006.

“And that’s for sleeping too,” he says.

After a quick flight south, dinner is at a Mexican restaurant in San Diego. Daily orders a margarita and the waitress asks for identification. Daily’s wallet is in the trunk of a rented car parked two blocks away.

“This is the man who won $6 million in the lottery,” Seaton pleads.

The waitress doesn’t buy it. Seaton pulls out the check. The waitress’ face spreads into a wide grin and for the rest of the evening she fusses over the table.

There were, Daily says, signs of destiny before he won the big money. He had been on strike at the supermarket for five weeks. His financial situation had sunk to its lowest point ever. Something had to break.

Over the course of four months, Daily purchased 25 to 30 lottery tickets and, by trading in $2 winners for new tickets, had scratched off about 60 before he hit the $100 winner that qualified him for the spin.

Weeks later, as Daily waited to take the contestants’ bus from a Sacramento hotel to the studio where the Big Spin would take place, he dropped a quarter into a fortune-telling machine. The slip of paper that came out read: “A short trip may be required to obtain funding.”

And there was the now-famous lucky charm Daily kept in his pocket. It had been given to him by a woman who worked with his mother. After he spun, Daily handed it to another contestant, who promptly won $1 million.

Still, after Daily won the money, he figured it would be old news by the next day. He never expected such a commotion. He has enjoyed it.

While all of his expenses for the trip were paid out of the lottery’s advertising fund, Daily was not paid to make the tour. He went along voluntarily.

“Most people would think it’s an intrusion on my life. But I love it,” Daily says. “The publicity and attention, the press conferences, first-class hotels and limousines.”

In high school Daily aspired to be an actor. He longed for bright lights and fawning interviewers. Before the lottery, the most expensive restaurant he had been to was a place in Newbury Park called The Rendez-vous.

“I think this has been handled pretty well,” Daily says. “I’m not walking around wearing green pants and a yellow shirt with a big ‘L’ on the front. It has been a lot more fun than I thought it would be.”

Seaton, too, is pleased. The important thing, he says, is to keep people thinking lottery. Even the wisecracks about unsavory winners helps, he insists.

“The bottom line is that it was exposure,” he says. “Johnny Carson was making jokes about it.” However, it will be a while before the lottery parades another winner around the state.

“You have to have the right kind of winner,” Seaton says. “About the time we run it up to $20 million or so, then we’ll do this again.”

FRIDAY: ‘Is she blond?’ Another 8 a.m. radio show. The disc jockey asks Daily if he has received any marriage proposals yet. Three, Daily says, in jest. The disc jockey offers his 7-year-old daughter.

“Is she blond?” Daily asks.

After the show, Seaton describes the enormous odds against winning the jackpot. Daily’s chances of buying the $100 ticket were 1 in 400. The chances of his ticket being drawn for the spin were 1 in 625. The overall odds of winning the jackpot were 1 in 25 million.

Up to this point Daily has appeared almost nonchalant about winning $6 million. Now he shakes his head slowly and for the first time shows a sign of amazement at his luck. In the parking lot, a Corvette is parked next to a Porsche. Daily’s mood lightens.

“Decisions, decisions, decisions.”

The afternoon is spent at Sea World and the San Diego Zoo. Promotional pictures are taken of Daily being kissed by a killer whale and hugging a leopard. An animal trainer tells him: “I have a darling 4-month-old daughter. Would you like to adopt her? Would you like to marry her?”

Seaton checks in with his office. “Late Night With David Letterman” is considering Daily as a guest. After a 6 p.m. television interview, Seaton and Daily fly to Palm Springs.

Seaton promises that the next day’s schedule will be light. There will be time to sit by the pool and relax in the sun. Daily nods to sleep on the plane.

SATURDAY: ‘Nobody win the 6 million!’

“Julio Iglesias Nervous About Sinatra Show,” reads a headline on the local newspaper. It is raining and cold in Palm Springs. “Abbott and Costello” hums over the television set in Daily’s room as a Desert Sun reporter knocks on the door.

The reporter asks if Daily plans to give any money to charity.

“It has crossed my mind, but there’s nothing definite.” he answers. Afterward he says: “If I say no, it looks crummy.”

Besides, the bank has the first crack at Daily’s money. His local branch, mindful that he has won, is holding onto two bounced checks Daily wrote last month.

Shortly before noon, Daily tapes a TV interview. The only thing left for the day is a radio interview by telephone. With the rain and the cold, there’s nothing to do but sit in the room. The call-in interview can be done from Los Angeles. Flights are rescheduled. The tour drizzles to an end.

“I hope I get home in time to see the Big Spin,” Daily says, waiting in the Palm Springs airport. “I’ll be saying ‘Nobody win the $6 million!’ I want to be No. 1. At least for another week.”