Players Push Their Luck and Chase the Numbers

In a week of crazy dreams and great expectations, with the California Lottery jackpot soaring into the stratosphere at a cool $70 million, what better spot to take your shot at stardom than the place known as the luckiest little Lotto outlet in all of Los Angeles?

With high hopes of hitting the second-biggest jackpot in the lottery’s 13-year history, would-be winners lined up by the hundreds Monday outside Bluebird Liquor in Hawthorne, the high-rolling outlet with a history of big payoffs.

They appeared even before sunrise and by the time the Bluebird opened at 6:45 a.m., the line had snaked into the adjacent parking lot--all of this frenzied betting coming a full two days before Wednesday night’s drawing.

All across the region, Lotto fever hit with a vengeance Monday as high-stakes gamblers from Whittier to Woodland Hills dusted off their lucky charms, crossed their fingers, settled on their picks and let their money ride.

Normally, at California’s 19,000 lottery outlets, the crush for winning tickets doesn’t begin until a few hours before the twice-weekly 7:58 p.m. drawings.

But this is no average week by a longshot, with the largest jackpot since 1991--when the granddaddy of all pots reached $118.8 million, the largest jackpot in the history of state lotteries nationwide. Now, once again, California is drawing national attention with the land’s largest current lottery jackpot.

And if sales continue at their present rate, lottery officials say, the pot will grow considerably by the time the numbers are chosen Wednesday night.

The jackpot reached $40 million for Saturday’s drawing, in which no player picked all six numbers.

Since then, ticket sales have shot through the roof.

At C&C; Liquor in Encino, owner Joe Helou said a woman who had never played the lottery before turned up, compelled to take a chance because of the giant jackpot. “I showed her how to pick the numbers and how to play,” Helou said.

And she wasn’t the only newcomer, Helou said, predicting his ticket sales will jump almost 500% this week. Even out-of-state buyers are getting in on the action. Helou said he sent out some tickets Monday to a man in Philadelphia.

“When it’s a big pot like this, everybody plays,” he said.

One customer, Mike from Agoura Hills, took another chance, doubling his usual $5 weekly bet, although he estimates he’s spent more than $10,000 on Lotto tickets and never won.

No win this time, Mike said, and he’ll cut his habit to $1 a week.

Moiz Zarifian, part owner of Liquor Store Ladins in Canoga Park, expects sales to triple this week. “Many, many more people are buying right now,” Zarifian said. “When they come and buy liquor, they ask how much the jackpot is, and then buy some tickets if it’s high.”

“Once they hear the news, they just start coming in,” said Ron Lee at Donut Depot in Canoga Park.

“Even when your number doesn’t come out, you feel like you’re going to hit someday,” said Mike Assaf, a cashier at Country Store Liquor & Jr. Market in Mission Hills.

If he wins, Assaf said, he’d invest his winnings in his own business--maybe a liquor store.

“This is my entertainment. We don’t go out to dinner a lot, so I think I can afford to spend $15 on this,” said Claudia Fox of Mission Hills, who dreams of a cruise around the world someday. She’s seen friends become addicted to the lottery, she said, but “I feel as long as you know when to say when, it’s OK.”

There was another incentive to flush out the heavy hitters: the new Super Lotto lump sum payment option feature, with which winners can opt to receive a lump sum equaling about half the jackpot. That’s the amount the lottery would invest to pay off the jackpot amount over 26 years. Or, as before, a winner can get annual payments spread over 26 years.

For some players, the option of a lump sum payment was a welcome change. “I’m 74 years of age--enough said,” observed Doris Blank as she bought $5 in quick picks at the Encino Newsstand on Ventura Boulevard.

Standing outside Bluebird Liquor, lottery picks clenched in his hand, 56-year-old Willie Luellen of Gardena said he felt good--$70 million worth, in fact.

“Hey, this liquor store is the luckiest spot on Earth,” he said. “If I’m gonna take my place among the millionaires on this planet, this is the place I’m gonna do it.”

The hopefuls there included gardeners and accountants, plumbers and secretaries, hundreds in all, and they all had something strange and wonderful in common: Whether they were wagering $5 or $500, they all felt lucky.

On Monday, they included people like Jene Mathews, a secretary who drove down from the Antelope Valley with $500 in cash. There was Vinnie Donohue of Santa Monica, a plumbing contractor who once bet $500 a week on the lottery, but has since curtailed his habit to a mere $100 weekly.

So far, in years of shelling out for tickets, Donohue’s biggest payoff has been $90. “But I figure I’ll get lucky sooner or later,” he says. “My chances are as good as anybody else’s. That’s why I keep playing.”

Norma Minas, a California lottery spokeswoman in Sacramento, said response to the newest jackpot has been fever-pitched.

“We’re breaking records,” she said. “With the largest jackpot in the nation, we expect it to be very busy.”

Six previous drawings dating back to March 21 produced no winner. “So, as we say, the jackpot rolls,” Minas said. “People keep playing and it gets bigger each time.”

The luckiest individual Super Lotto winner in state history was Augustine Chiarenza of Lompoc, who won $51.6 million on June 18, 1994.

Still, lottery jackpots remain fickle creatures. The last time the pot reached as high as $40 million was a year ago, and so far 1998 has been what officials call a dry year with average jackpots.

Times staff writer Daniel Yi contributed to this story.