Plans to ‘Get Out of Debt’ : Lottery Fan Who Stayed Takes a $1-Million Spin

A Van Nuys apartment manager who vowed he would “leave the state” if voters didn’t approve the California State Lottery last year saw his support rewarded when he won $1 million during the lottery’s “Big Spin” on Saturday.

Dick Charles, 47, was one of three people to become millionaires in the weekly lottery show, during which 15 contestants spin a giant wheel for prizes. None of Saturday’s contestants were lucky enough, however, to end a seven-week drought by bagging the grand prize of more than $10 million.

Charles said he wasn’t even thinking of the grand prize when he appeared before the studio audience here and yanked the lottery wheel.

“What was going to happen was going to happen,” he said. “But my eyes were glued on the $1-million mark.”

Charles, resident manager of a 72-unit apartment complex on Sepulveda Boulevard, said he will use his first installment check from the lottery to pay off about $20,000 in debts.

‘I Want to See How It Feels’

“The first check I get, I’m going to get out of debt. I want to see how it feels,” he said.

Despite his winnings, which will yield $40,000 a year for the next 20 years, Charles said he wants to continue working as an apartment manager.

He is a regular lottery player who purchased his winning ticket, which made him eligible for a turn at the lottery wheel, when he and his wife were going out to breakfast one morning in April.

He said he is such a lottery fan that he was “thinking of leaving the state if it didn’t go through.”

“Look at how many people it has made happy,” said Charles. “Like myself. I can breathe a little easier . . . The most important thing is, in 20 years we’re going to retire, my wife and I. I look forward to having something to put away.”