Late Lotto Crush Jams Machines

Overwhelmed by a last-minute ticket-buying frenzy, Super Lotto machines at some sites across California shut down Wednesday as the jackpot climbed to $102 million, the second-largest in California Lottery history, officials said.

The shutdowns began in the late afternoon and lasted as long as two hours in some locations as up to 100,000 tickets per minute were sold. The deadline to buy tickets was 7:45 p.m. and the drawing took place 12 minutes later.

It was not known how many sites were affected by the system overload, or for exactly how long, lottery officials said. But Norma Minas, a state lottery spokeswoman, said the majority of sites were back online well in advance of the deadline.

“Our system was adversely affected by the high volume,” Minas said. “We don’t know exactly what caused the shutdowns, or the extent of it. We just know it was a technical difficulty.”

The Olympic Shop in downtown Los Angeles sold 8,000 lottery tickets Tuesday and had sold about 6,000 Wednesday before the shop’s machine stopped functioning around 4:30 p.m., a store employee said. Two hours later, about 30 people were waiting in line.

“I’ve been calling the repair hotline, but I haven’t been able to get through to anyone,” said George Nishitani, who was running the cash register. “Most people have been pretty patient. But a few people have been irritated and stomped off.”

In Oceanside, police were dispatched to a store to control a crowd of about 100 people who were incensed when clerks were forced to stop selling the tickets.

At a Newport Beach Circle K, where 20 people waited in line at 6 p.m., store manager Deborah Alaimo said she hadn’t been able to sell a ticket for more than an hour.

“Usually it’s only a couple of minutes, but it’s been about an hour and a half now, and we’ve had no luck,” she said. “The machine just says, ‘Retry transaction, line down,’ which usually indicates it’s a state problem. Also, the help line has been busy all day. It’s [usually] never busy.”

The same was true at a Costa Mesa 7-Eleven, where cars, minivans and trucks were tangled in the store’s small parking lot. Inside, the line snaked around a counter and did not move.

“I had time to go and buy golf balls down the street while I was waiting,” said Robert Lu, a real estate consultant.

Gary Guzzetta of Costa Mesa waited for 45 minutes at an Irvine liquor store, then gave up and went to a 7-Eleven in Costa Mesa, where the wait was worse. “People had been waiting for two hours,” he said.

Another customer, who did not give his name, said, “When that machine went on the fritz, the store clerks said, ‘Pray.’ So I said a prayer to St. Jude, the patron saint of impossible causes.”

Wednesday’s winning numbers were 10, 21, 28, 29, 37 and 41. The record payout was $118 million in April 1991.