Lotto Jackpot Could Reach $100 Million

Jackpot predictions for Wednesday’s Lotto 6/53 game soared Sunday to $100 million, in what could be the game’s biggest payoff.

No one picked all six winning numbers Saturday when $65 million had been at stake.

News of the growing jackpot filtered through the Southland from liquor stores to newsstands, as customers dug deeper into their pockets in hopes of becoming multimillionaires in Wednesday’s drawing.

One hopeful was 10-year-old Moshe Moshkovich, who rushed to his mother outside a 7-Eleven after he overheard a clerk at the 3rd and Gardner Street store in Los Angeles telling customers about the news. Eight years shy of being legally able to try for the millions, he wanted his mother to buy a ticket.

“Buy two,” he urged. “One hundred MILLION,” the boy marveled. “I would buy myself a car, a three-story house and a business.”

Laughing and saying she never invests in the lottery, Irena Moshkovich purchased two tickets as the clerk reminded her, “One hundred million. Good luck.”

Michael McZeal of Cerritos stopped by the same store, shelling out $10. McZeal said he rarely plays Lotto--”only when it gets big like this,” as a smile spread across his face.

Ticket sales may have been brisk in some places, but news still hadn’t spread by early afternoon to customers at the 7-Eleven on Whitworth Drive and Fairfax Avenue in Los Angeles.

“A lot of people don’t even know nobody won,” said Vini Gill, who operates the store. “Come back Wednesday. It’ll be like Disneyland.”

Calvin Kim, the manager of Pound Penny Liquor and Market in Hawthorne, told United Press International that ticket sales began the moment his doors opened Sunday morning, when it was clear that there were no winners. Two hours into the business day and Kim said he had already sold 300 tickets.

The previous record Lotto jackpot in California, shared by 11 people, was $68.56 million in February, 1990. The highest lottery payout in the nation was Pennsylvania’s $115 million jackpot in 1989.

But Lotto fever didn’t infect everyone. One senior citizen walking past the Town and Country Shopping Center’s newsstand on 3rd Street and Fairfax Avenue in Los Angeles laughed at the idea of buying a ticket.

“At my age, what would I do with that money? Forget it,” the woman scoffed.