Cash Bids Too Low for Winning Lotto Ticket

No sale.

When a group of workers at a Glendale aerospace company put their $3 million-plus winning Lotto ticket out for the highest bidder, to profit now rather than wait for 20 years’ worth of lottery checks, the inquiries came rolling in--more than 100 of them.

But the bidding never got high enough, and so, as the Sotheby’s people do when their minimum price is not met, the item was withdrawn from auction.

“We turned the ticket in (to the state lottery office), and some time within the next 30 days we’ll get our first check,” said Jim, the biggest shareholder among about two dozen co-workers who had bought into the lottery enterprise.

‘No, Thank You’

Jim had advertised the $3,061,408 winning ticket for sale at $1.2 million or best offer, after fellow shareholders opted to cash out now rather than wait for yearly checks that would be subdivided to as little as $1,000 for some.

Interested buyers “called, then they disappeared.” More than a dozen did call back to say they couldn’t swing the deal, and one made his best, final pitch--$800,000. “I said ‘no thank you.’ ”

When his co-workers first voted to sell the ticket, they also agreed that “if we didn’t get a firm offer, then I was going to turn it in,” Jim said. “I was getting tired of the hassles, so we just turned it in.”

So he signed it and sent it off. “I’m glad it’s over--that part of it, anyway.”

Now he has to play paymaster and parcel out the first check, about $122,000 after initial taxes, among the share owners when it arrives. The lottery people “said they’d try” to have it in the mail by Christmas, “but they couldn’t say for sure.”

Undaunted, Jim believes in mind over money. His computerized program earned him more than $300 in winnings with 258 Lotto tickets in Wednesday night’s drawing, and he has hopes that Saturday’s could be even better. “It’s not hopes,” he corrected. “It’s fact.”