Bettors Dream of Beating the Odds : Brisk O.C. Sales Expected as Tonight’s Super Lotto Pool Climbs to $45 Million

Peter Chi plays the lottery every week. His dreams are just around the corner, he just knows it. Maybe, they’ll even come true tonight. . . .

“I feel lucky,” said the 50-year-old waiter as he bought five tickets at a liquor store Friday. “This time, I’m going to hit this 45.”

That’s $45 million.

And the amount of today’s Super Lotto jackpot could go higher as more people rush out at the last minute to buy their luck.

It never fails, say managers and owners of supermarkets, grocery stores and liquor marts. When the jackpot hits double digits, people of all economic backgrounds invariably flock to these businesses on the evening before and the day of the drawing to buy lottery tickets.

The drawing will take place at 7:57 p.m. on KNBC-TV Channel 4. A single-ticket winner of $45 million would receive approximately $2.2 million a year over 20 years, before taxes.

Lotto ticket sales at the Susie’s Market in Santa Ana weren’t exactly hopping Friday, but owner Tom Chun wasn’t worried. Before the day is over, he predicted, they’ll come in droves. They always do.

“On average, I sell about 2,000 tickets,” said Chun, 35. “But when the amount goes up, I sell at least 5,000 tickets and my cash register keeps ringing. That makes me happy.”

The dreamers come buying, as few as one ticket and as many as hundreds. Some buy the computer-generated tickets. Others devise their own system of selecting numbers. Their birthday. Their loved ones’ birthdays. An anniversary.

Sybil Sommer used the birth dates of her three dogs.

If she somehow won the $45 million, the Santa Ana resident said, she’d buy a fishing boat and sail into the sunset toward Cabo San Lucas. She would also share the wealth.

“I’d donate money to poor people,” Sommer, 43, said dreamily as she filled in the bubbles on a ticket form at a convenience store. “I’d open shelters for the homeless.”

Not every Lotto ticket buyer was as generous in imagination.

A Mission Viejo man wants to see the world. A Fullerton woman wants a closet full of mink coats. A Buena Park couple want a Cadillac. None of them want to be thought of as frivolous, so they withheld their names.

Phil Nelson, a 50-year-old roofing contractor from Newport Beach who bought five tickets, doesn’t know what he’d do with such winnings. “But, I would like to have that tough decision,” he added.

Chi knows exactly what he would do with the millions. There’s the two kids’ education. A new house. An early retirement from waiting tables. And then there are his five brothers in Taiwan.

“All my brothers and relatives in Taiwan are poor,” Chi said. “They need help. Maybe I give them each a million.”

His intuition aside, Chi admitted that the chances of his winning are slim. Still, he likes the odds.

“When you play the lottery,” he said, “at any time, there’s a chance--a chance--to change your future.”