The Lotto Is On-Line--but Lines Are Skimpy

The California Lottery’s new legalized version of the old numbers game was off to a checkered start around the state Tuesday amid reports of fewer than expected participants and scattered breakdowns of the computer system.

Lotto 6/49, which officials hope will boost flagging interest in the $2-billion-a-year state lottery, went on-line at 12:30 p.m. when Lottery Director Mark Michalko threw a ceremonial switch on a stage in Westwood.

The UCLA marching band, jugglers and mimes entertained nearly 1,000 lunch-hour pedestrians on closed-off Broxton Avenue. Free Lotto T-shirts and some free chances at the big payoff were handed out. Dodger second baseman Steve Sax selected the first numbers.

Sounding a bit like a carnival barker, Michalko told the crowd, “6/49 describes the game. Pick six numbers from the field of 1 to 49. If you match all six, you win the jackpot. We have the biggest, quickest lotto game in the world.”

Just how big and how fast remains to be seen.

First Drawing Saturday

This Saturday, in a program televised statewide from Beverly Hills, a machine will spit out the winning numbers in the form of six of 49 balls numbered from 1 to 49. Drawings will be held every Saturday at 7:58 p.m. After the first week, drawings will be in Sacramento.

The size of the jackpot will depend on how many people bet each week, although it is expected to at times mount into the tens of millions of dollars. The odds of winning in any given week are 1 in 14 million. If no one picks the six winning numbers, the prize money will be rolled over into the next’s week pool.

Smaller prizes will be awarded to players who select three, four or five winning numbers or five of the winning six plus a “bonus number” that will be selected every week.

Interest in Lotto seemed considerable Tuesday, but appeared to fall short of the turnout a year ago when the lottery made its debut in the form of instant-winner scratch-off tickets. The lottery sold 21.4 million of the $1 tickets in the first 24 hours.

Michalko told the Westwood crowd that 100,000 tickets at $1 each had been sold in the first 15 minutes of Lotto around the state.

No figures were immediately available for the first day of sales. However, a check of retail outlets around the state showed few of the long lines that accompanied the start of the scratch-off games Oct. 3, 1985. Moreover, there are only 5,000 outlets for Lotto, compared to 20,000 for the scratch-off games.

While the California Lottery has become the most successful state lottery in the nation, ticket sales for the scratch-off game have declined steadily since it began. State officials expect Lotto 6/49 to renew interest in the lottery.

Michalko said the lottery drew $9 million in sales daily when it began, but “stabilized four to five weeks ago ago at about $2.5 million a day.”

Initial Response

If Lotto is going to be an instant hit, it was not readily apparent Tuesday.

The manager of a Haagen-Dazs ice cream shop in Beverly Hills reported 150 customers lined up to buy tickets when play began at 12:30.

However, just 50 minutes later, the store was deserted.

At a 7-Eleven on Hollywood Boulevard, store personnel fiddled in vain with their machine and several would-be players walked away empty-handed.

Several San Diego County convenience and liquor stores reported problems with Lotto machines that slowed game ticket selling. At a Lotto kickoff event at a Mission Valley shopping mall, a jammed terminal doubled the wait for customers queued to buy their first chance.

Several store owners had trouble signing on to the new Lotto terminal, and others said their machines spit back tickets or misread the number of digits on the submitted card.

In Imperial Beach, 7-Eleven store manager Dottie Sandoval had hoped to start selling Lotto tickets when the switch was flipped. “We were turning away people even before it opened today,” she said.

Machine Wouldn’t Work

But her machine would not work Tuesday, and lottery officials could not say when the terminal would be repaired.

“I know they are swamped, but it would help if we could tell our customers when it will be fixed,” she said.

Orange County’s Lotto kickoff was relatively low key. The only real ceremony was at Stadium Liquors in Anaheim where an estimated 200 people gathered to watch lottery official Sid Kaplan grab a microphone and tell the sweating would-be Lotto players of “the good news” about gambling.

Kevin Pittman, 29, really needed some good news. A chemist unemployed for the last month, Pittman said he was driving by looking for work when he saw the crowd and stopped.

“I’m not going to buy any tickets,” the Anaheim resident said. “I can’t afford it. I’m just going to take the free one.”

At least three Orange County retailers had to turn away customers because of faulty Lotto machines.

Pauline Allen of Garden Grove had a message for lottery officials in Sacramento as she left a store plagued by broken machines: “Tell ‘em I’m put out because I came here wantin’ to buy a ticket on the first day, and it wasn’t hooked up. I just had my 70th birthday, and I came to buy a ticket for my present.”

Farah Ammari, owner of the Pacoima Food Market in the San Fernando Valley, said he sold tickets to about 10 customers in the first half-hour.

‘Wait and See’

“It is ‘wait and see,’ ” he said of the game. “The other (scratch-off) tickets, they got excited about it, but it slowed down very bad.”

Although Lotto sales at his store were less than brisk, he was optimistic.

“This area, my friend, this is a gambling area,” he said, pointing out at a block that is also home to two pool halls. “All day long they shoot dice. All day long they play horses . . . . They love it.”

In Sherman Oaks, actor Robby Benson stopped by Tony Liquors on Ventura Boulevard to buy $5 in tickets. “I’m a gambler at heart,” he said. “I think it appeals to the sucker in all of us.”

In San Francisco, several thousand people spent their lunch hour in Union Square at a celebration that featured more balloons, another marching band, dancers, and cheerleaders from the San Francisco 49ers.

Like several other Lotto players, Ed Wilson, 39, said he initially spent several dollars a week on lottery scratch-off games but grew frustrated because he never won big.

‘See What Happens’

“I’m going to try this, see what happens,” said Wilson, a computer program analyst. “I feel that because I’m picking the numbers, I have a better chance. That’s not saying it is a better chance. It just seems that way.”

At Ping Yuen Drug Store in San Francisco’s Chinatown, owner Ray Chow watched a steady stream of customers file into his shop to play the game. The shop has been among the most successful lottery outlets in the state, officials have said.

Chow said people began lining up just after 10 a.m., more than two hours before the first tickets were sold. Chow attributed the day’s success to the 4,000 free Lotto T-shirts he was handing out.

On the grounds of the Capitol in Sacramento, state employees lined up 30 deep at three booths sponsored by 7-Eleven stores to buy tickets during the lunchtime ceremonies.