Florida’s Million-Dollar Question: Did Anybody Win? : Lotto: Officials are expected to know today if any players had all six numbers. The top prize will be the second-biggest jackpot in the nation.

Forget the $64,000 question. All of Florida and beyond wants to know the $100-million answer--if anyone picked the six numbers in Saturday’s drawing to win the nation’s second-largest lottery jackpot.

Lotto fever pulled people to the state like a magnet last week. On Saturday, officials reported that people were spending hours in lines outside convenience stores and other outlets, waiting to buy a ticket they hoped would make them an instant millionaire.

“There are a couple of places, remote places, little out-of-the-way places, where for whatever reason they don’t have long lines,” said lottery spokesman Ed George, who considered a Saturday line of 15 people short.

As the minutes ticked toward the 10:30 p.m. sales deadline for the 10:58 p.m. drawing, the enthusiasm kept building.

“Every time you turn on the news it’s Lotto, Lotto, Lotto. Everybody’s talking about it,” said Art Yandoc of Miami, who bought 15 $1 tickets before playing tennis.

The winning numbers drawn Saturday were: 5-6-21-34-35-45.

Lottery officials won’t know until Monday exactly how big the jackpot will be, but George said: “We’re well on our way to paying $100 million.”

The jackpot has grown each of the last four weeks, since no one has picked all six winning numbers.

But with so many people buying tickets, George said it is likely the prize will be divided among several people holding winning tickets this week. And officials did not expect to know until today if there were any winners.

To win the jackpot, players must pick the six winning numbers between 1 and 49, or have machines select them at random. The odds of winning are 1 in 14 million.

Florida’s previous record Lotto prize was $58 million, split among five winners in April. Pennsylvania’s lottery produced the nation’s biggest jackpot--$115 million--in April, 1989.

At a truck stop in Jennings, five miles from the Georgia border, the wait for tickets lasted five hours, and vehicles with license plates from New York, Tennessee, Wisconsin, Louisiana and even California were backed up on the Interstate 75 ramp.

“We do more lottery than diesel. The trucks can’t get in here,” said Liz Burse, manager at Johnson & Johnson truck stop. One bettor tried to jump into line and “they nearly lynched him,” she said.

Florida laws limit lottery ticket sales to inside the state and only through authorized retailers. At a Chevron station across from Miami International Airport, taxis dropped off people who flew in from such cities as Houston, St. Louis and New York.

Some bettors were buying tickets by the hundreds, or thousands.

Bill Villafina of Kissimmee said he spent more than seven hours purchasing tickets--all part of a plan to spend “somewhere in the neighborhood of $50,000,” primarily for New Jersey relatives.

About 175 employees at Jensen Corp., a Ft. Lauderdale manufacturer of restaurant and hospital equipment, found a Lotto ticket tucked into each of their paycheck envelopes Friday.

“It used to be said that the American dream was a good job, owning your own home and a chicken in every pot,” a company letter said. “Nowadays, the American dream is to win a state lottery.”