Jackpot Dreams Propel Brisk Lotto Sales

Lotto fever soared Tuesday in Orange County as the state’s second largest jackpot ever, a potential payoff of more than $35 million, loomed for tonight’s drawing.

“I’m probably doing about eight times the business, maybe nine,” Steve Richion said Tuesday from behind the counter at Beach Ball Liquors and Wines in Anaheim. “I’m getting some (customers) I’ve never seen before. Some I have to show how to play the game.”

Richion said he had sold about 4,000 Lotto tickets by 3 p.m.

“They are going ape, I’m telling you,” he said. “It’s getting bigger as the day goes on, as people get out of work. Tomorrow ought to be a madhouse.”

Richion allowed that he will buy his share of tickets too because “it could change your life.”

At Baycrest Spirits & Wine Shop in Costa Mesa, new owner Mike Stingle had just taken over the business this week.

“I just got the machine turned on today,” he said Tuesday. “People are starting to roll in. We’ve got about 2,500 (ticket sales) today.

“It benefits me just as well as the customer,” Stingle said of the near-record jackpot.

A Lotto retailer is rewarded with one half of 1% of the jackpot if the winner picks his numbers in that store, according to lottery officials.

“If I get a piece of the pie, then some customer gets a bigger piece,” Stingle said.

Bob Taylor, director of public affairs for the California Lottery, said sales on Sunday were 60% greater than anticipated, and that Monday’s sales were three times the normal volume. On Tuesday, 4.9 million tickets had been sold by 3:45 p.m., compared to a record high for a Tuesday of 5.2 million.

“Needless to say, we’re going to shatter the record for a Tuesday,” Taylor said.

Lotto is played by selecting six numbers from one to 49. The odds of winning the jackpot--choosing all six numbers to be drawn--are one in 13.9 million, the number of possible combinations.

“Those lucky people who can defy odds . . . win the jackpot,” Taylor said. “It’s probably worth a buck. I think a lot of people think it’s worth a buck.”

The $35-million jackpot would probably be the fifth highest lotto payoff in the history of lotteries in the United States, and the second highest in California, Taylor said. The nation’s largest was on June 4 when two Northern California players split a $51.2 million payoff.

In Saturday’s drawing, no player picked all six Lotto numbers for a $20-million grand prize. That marked the third biweekly drawing to be rolled over to the next drawing because no one had picked all six numbers.

Today’s numbers will be selected at 7:58 p.m. If there is no winner, the jackpot will be rolled over until the next drawing, on Saturday.