Iraqi Picks Lotto Numbers : Birth Dates, Utility Bills: A Winning Combination

An Iraqi immigrant who won more than $4 million in the state lottery’s Lotto 6/49 contest said he has been gambling more than $50 monthly, using his children’s birth dates and numbers from his utility bills as his entries.

Ben Shallow, a 50-year-old mechanic at Gallo Glass since he moved to Modesto from Baghdad in 1974, said at a Sacramento news conference that “it was about time” to win, “because I was going to slow down” the gambling pace he has kept since the game started last October.

Shallow said he used the same combinations of numbers, based on the birth dates of his four children, then included some numbers from a Modesto Irrigation District bill.

His $4,040,000 prize will yield payments, after federal tax withholding, of $161,600 annually for 20 years, said lottery spokesman Bob Taylor. Officials estimated the prize initially at $3.93 million.

Shallow said, “I am happy that this occurred at Easter, because all my family is here.”

He plans to donate some of his winnings to a fund to build an Eastern Orthodox church in Modesto. The family attended the church in Turlock in shifts Sunday because the sanctuary was too small for the big Easter crowd.

Shallow said he will also invest in real estate, make a fourth trip to London to see relatives and buy his brother, William Shallow, a mini-market.

Asked if he would keep his job, Shallow said, “I don’t think so.”

Nobody guessed the game’s second-richest combination of five numbers plus the bonus number last week. That means the $1,111,697 prize pool for that category will carry over to become part of an expected $5-million-plus jackpot this week.