$45-Million Jackpot Sparks ‘Lottomania’

A strange and awesome malady gripped thousands of the state’s residents Friday.

And the only cure, some say, is winning the state’s largest lottery ever--which promised to be worth about $45 million by the time of the drawing at 7:58 p.m. today.

Tens of thousands were bitten by the lottery bug,and by Friday evening fevered Californians had bought almost $14.4 million worth of Lotto tickets. That compared to the same period last week when $2.4 million in tickets were sold.

“It’s lottomania,” said Robert Taylor, lottery spokesman.

“It’s a strange condition that exists when the game becomes the general topic of conversation every place you go. What we are seeing is people who haven’t played before, who are saying, ‘What the heck . . . I might as well buy a few tickets.’ Well that’s happening everywhere. And those who usually buy, well, they seem to be buying in larger quantities,” he said.

It was no different Friday in Orange County.

Amy Sinclair, a clerk at a 7-Eleven store on Ellis Avenue in Fountain Valley, said the store had sold about 5,000 tickets Friday, about 20 times the usual amount.

“It’s not so much that a lot of people are coming in, but they are buying a lot of them. It’s been like that since early afternoon,” Sinclair said Friday night.

At another 7-Eleven, this one on West Edinger Avenue in Santa Ana, manager Paul Balla said his store had sold about 2,000 tickets, four times the normal sale of Lotto tickets for a Friday.

“It’s been going fast, but I kind of thought it would be even faster,” Balla said.

A manager of an Alpha Beta supermarket on North Euclid Street in Anaheim said business had been “very brisk, about triple what we normally sell,” although he would not elaborate on the number of tickets sold Friday.

The same could not be said for all merchants participating in the California Lottery program. At the Circle-K Market on Sunflower Avenue in Costa Mesa, the manager said he was doing the same small amount of business in lottery tickets as usual Friday night. But he only sells the regular, scratch-off variety of lottery ticket.

“I guess I could have sold a lot more if I had the Lotto kind,” said the manager, who declined to give his name.

At the Olympic Shop gift and candy store in Little Tokyo in Los Angeles on Friday afternoon, Harvey Ah Sam was in line for the third time. Ah Sam, an insurance broker, said he normally buys five of the $1 tickets a week. Friday, he said, he bought 65.

Asked whether he thought that was excessive, Ah Sam paused not a moment to reflect.

“Not for $40 million,” he said. “For $4 million, maybe. But not for $40 million.”

Could be Largest

The jackpot could be the largest ever offered by a state.

Pennsylvania has had the distinction of handing out the largest amount of money--$46 million last October. Other lottery biggies have been the $41-million jackpot won in New York in 1985, and $40 million given away in Illinois in 1984.

If only one lucky player picks all six numbers correctly, the winner will receive about $1.8 million annually for 20 years after taxes have been deducted, Lotto officials said.

The highest Lotto jackpots ever handed out in California were $25.4 million, shared by two winners last October, and $25.1 million won by a Compton man last December.

The last winner won $10 million in the May 18 drawing. Since then, four drawings have been held without a winner, which has accounted for the inflated jackpot.

Snarl of Cars

And the extraordinary size of the jackpot was bringing out record numbers of new players.

A snarl of cars driven mostly by Encino and Sherman Oaks residents returning from work caused a parking lot jam at the Valley Beverage Co., one of the San Fernando Valley’s busiest state lottery ticket vendors.

Wiping beads of perspiration from her brow, manager Dawn Jones said: “There are a lot of people in here that I’ve never seen before. . . . It’s been crazy in here. We’ve done triple our regular business,” which is normally about 3,000 tickets a day.

One of those customers was Kim Richter, who said the prize “just got too big to resist.”

Tammy Nason, who only plays when the jackpot creeps over $10 million, said, “I guess I’m a dreamer and a gambler, but at these stakes a lot of people are.”

“I hear they’re even buying them in Beverly Hills,” said Darryl Evans, a regular player.

‘It Never Stopped’

Tomiko Takasaki, who runs the Olympic Shop’s Lotto machine, had no time to pause as she served a steady stream of players. “All day it’s been like this,” she said. “I opened at 10 o’clock and they were already lined up. It never stopped.”

A hand-lettered sign in the window advertised the extraordinary jackpot. But by late afternoon, it seemed, advertising was unnecessary. “I am tired,” she proclaimed.

San Diego’s downtown Super Junior Market took in more on Lotto tickets Friday than they did on grocery and deli items at their 7th Avenue store.

Each one received a “good luck” send-off from the clerk. After all, he said, if one of the store’s lottery bettors hits it big, then Super Junior Market gets a piece of the action. Store owners receive five cents for every $1 ticket sold and one half of 1% of any prizes won at their store.

In Escondido, a Liquor Barn employee could only groan and hang up the telephone when asked how sales were going. Jesus Avilos, a clerk in a San Ysidro mini-market couldn’t take time out from his business. “I’m making out an order for $2,500 (in Lotto tickets) right now.”

Last-Minute Crush

In order to handle the last-minute crush of players, state lottery officials formed a Lottery Fever Management Team made up of phone company and lottery computer terminal experts. A division of lottery employees was also sent out to all 100 of the new experimental self-service ticket dispensers in Northern California to assist players.

Friday night, Lotto hours were extended an hour, until 11 p.m., to help accommodate the players. The deadline for buying a ticket is 7:45 p.m. tonight. The winning numbers will be drawn at 7:58 p.m., and will be televised locally on KTTV, Channel 11.

Officials were begging the public not to call the Lottery Commission to find out what the winning numbers are. “It’ll get nuts,” explained Bob Menzimer, spokesman for Megaphone, which operates the lottery hot lines. Instead, the winning numbers will be available for a 25-cent toll-charge on special hot line phones five minutes after the drawing. The English speaking hot line number is (213) 976-4275; Spanish and Chinese, (213) 976-5275.

As Lotto frenzy heightened, psychologist Robert Butterworth warned that many people who suffered the Lotto bug are going to get another weird malady called “lottery fantasy syndrome.”

He explained that all these people have been in fantasyland for the last few days thinking about how they will spend all their millions, how all this money may help create a new life. When the winner is picked and all the rest of the players are faced with the same old reality as before, depression and apathy can set in.

The losers will have lots of company.

The odds of winning the $40-million jackpot are one in 14 million, officials said.

Also contributing to this story were Times staff writers Ted Rohrlich and Charles Finnie in Los Angeles, Ray Perez in Orange County and Nancy Ray in San Diego.