Former Waitress, 74, Gets a $14-Million Tip From Lottery
Seventy-four-year-old Maymal R. Williams is going back to Beverly Hills.
The last time she was there, she spent her days as a waitress in a fancy hotel making ice cream sodas for the rich and famous. As of Thursday, she can count herself among them.
Williams’ “quick pick” Lotto 6/49 ticket purchased at a Chinatown market netted her $14 million during Wednesday night’s Lotto draw. After taxes, she or her estate will receive a yearly check for $566,400 for the next 20 years.
Only six other Lotto winners have won more money than her, and she is the 110th Lotto player to win more than $1 million.
Giggles Nervously
Williams, dressed in a white skirt and blouse and wearing dangling silver earrings, giggled nervously at a press conference Thursday and said that one of the first things she was going to do with her winnings was “buy a lot of expensive clothes.” She added, “Now, I like to look at them over at The Broadway, but I can’t afford them.”
Williams, who is single and has no children, has a modest four-room apartment in a senior citizens’ complex in downtown Los Angeles for which she pays $200 of her $600 monthly Social Security check. When she started playing Lotto, she said, “I told myself, ‘if I win the lottery I’ll get one of those pretty apartments in Beverly Hills that I see from the bus.’ ”
She also said she had taken Hawaiian dance lessons to entertain at convalescent homes, but would like to try out the steps in Hawaii, which she has never visited.
Williams, who retired as a waitress at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in 1972, said she has a boyfriend who was “happy” about her win. “But I haven’t had any marriage proposals from anyone since I won. I guess it’s too early yet.”
Usually Uses ‘Quick Pick’
Williams said she usually buys about $5 worth of Lotto tickets a week, usually using the “quick pick” method in which a computer selects the numbers. She has committed to memory the six numbers that turned up winners on Wednesday: “6, 19, 33, 43, 37, 47.”
She watched Wednesday night’s drawing on television and when she realized she had won, “I screamed and called my brothers and sisters and ran up my phone bill.”
Meanwhile, state lottery officials said there is another lucky winner out there somewhere. A Lotto ticket purchased June 15 in Hawthorne has not yet been turned in. It is worth $4.7 million. The ticket, bought between 6 p.m. and 7 p.m. at Blue Bird Liquor, is one of five containing the winning numbers 1, 10, 17, 20, 32, 40, and bonus number 31. The four other winners came forward to share the $23.3-million jackpot.
The ticket holder has six months to come forward and claim the prize. After that, the money reverts to the state education fund, lottery officials said.
