California’s 2 Newest Millionaires : Clerk, Mechanic Split Record $51.4-Million Lotto Jackpot

A Vacaville aircraft mechanic and a Sacramento supermarket clerk today claimed equal shares of the biggest state lottery jackpot ever offered in North America--$51.4 million.

Shelby Carroll, 53, of Vacaville told reporters at California Lottery headquarters that he bought $100 worth of tickets on his break last Friday from his job as a mechanic at Travis Air Force Base.

“I had a feeling,” he said. “Somebody’s got to win. Why not me?”

‘I Just Got Lucky’

Randy Pennington, 26, of the Sacramento suburb of Carmichael said he bought his ticket at the supermarket where he works as a grocery clerk.

“I just got lucky,” he said. “What can I say?”

Pennington said he quit his job and will use some of the money to help his family. Carroll said he will do “the normal thing: help out the immediate family first of all, especially my mother.”

Each ticket was worth more than $1 million a year after taxes for 20 years, officials said.

The tickets were sold at Northern California Lotto machines located 45 miles apart, said spokesman John Schade. One machine was at Travis Liquor in Fairfield, and the other was at the Bel-Air Market in the Sacramento suburb of Carmichael.

Stores selling lottery tickets receive 0.5% of prizes won by tickets they sell, making the winning tickets worth $128,000 to the vendors.

California Lottery officials said the $51.4-million Lotto 6/49 grand prize for selecting six numbers out of 49 is North America’s biggest state lottery prize ever, eclipsing the $46-million record set in Pennsylvania last year.

California’s lottery players can either choose their own numbers or let the state’s computer assign them six numbers at random. On both winning tickets, the numbers were chosen by the computer.

Each ticket is worth a 20-year annuity worth $25.7 million, paid in annual installments of $1,028,000 after the Internal Revenue Service withholds 20%. California does not tax its lottery winners.

In addition to the big winners, 22 other people came tantalizingly close to the big score, by picking five of the six winning numbers and getting a “bonus” number. Those tickets are worth one-time payments of about $295,000, Schade said.

The jackpot grew to gigantic proportions when nobody picked all six winners for four of the semiweekly Lotto 6/49 games and the first prize rolled over into the next game.

The winners’ award culminated several days of frenzied lotto playing, during which the bettors purchased up to $4 million worth of tickets an hour.

The winning numbers, drawn Saturday night during a television broadcast that broke all previous Lottery ratings records, were 48, 42, 9, 14, 19 and 31 with the bonus number 37.