A Mega-Winner in Anaheim Mini-Mart
Jennifer Lam didn’t buy any lottery tickets this week but she won $435,000 anyway.
And all day Thursday the wistful and the hopeful filed through her store, Kelly’s Mini Mart in Anaheim, to offer congratulations and check their own tickets against the SuperLotto printout.
The jackpot of $87 million went to one ticket holder among the 513 people who bought nearly 2,500 tickets at Lam’s store during the run-up to Wednesday night’s drawing. Because the winner, who hadn’t come forward by late Thursday, opted for one lump sum instead of 26 annual payments, the payout will be $40.6 million, lottery officials said.
The Westminster woman’s take for owning the shop that sold the winner: $435,000, or one half of 1%.
“I’m numb,” Lam, 38, said Thursday morning as reporters, customers and the curious floated through the store. “I’m happy for my customer who won.”
The odds of Lam hitting the jackpot are steep. An estimated 19,000 retailers sell lottery products in California, with about 70% being independent stores like Lam’s, said Cathy Doyle Johnston, spokeswoman for the California Lottery in Sacramento.
The state paid out $3.1 million to retailers in lottery bonuses in fiscal year 1997-98. This year the state expects that to rise to $3.8 million.
Lam’s lottery retailer bonus of $435,000 is the largest payout ever. Doyle Johnston said the prize should “benefit a mom-and-pop more, because, unlike a major chain, the money goes directly to the owners instead of possibly to corporate offices.”
Lam learned of her windfall from her husband, Johnathon Phan. About an hour after opening the store about 8:30 a.m., he answered a call from lottery officials informing him that the store had sold the one and only winning ticket. He then called his wife with the news.
“He was screaming,” Lam said, standing behind the shop counter with rows of cigarettes, condoms and baseball caps with slogans like “Got beer?” on the shelves behind her. “My first reaction was that somebody had broken into the store.”
It was a disruptive morning elsewhere too.
Two doors down, three workers at Marisco’s Mexican restaurant wondered why all the television news trucks were sweeping into the usually deserted parking lot. When they found out, Eduardo Gitica, 35, nipped over to a nearby store and bought a copy of La Opinion, turning to the lottery page when he returned to the restaurant.
Monica Stan, 25, held two tickets as Imelda Rembau, 35, watched. “Ocho,” Gitica called out before switching to English, “25, 26 . . . “ as Stan ran a pen over the tickets, circling one number, then another.
Four numbers matched. On three different lines.
Which in Lottery Land means, “Nada.’
“This is the first time I’ve bought tickets,” Stan said, laughing. “But now I think I’ll buy more.”
A few stores away, Ana Keytan, 28, was running late opening her Ritmo Alegre--Happy Rhythm--music CD shop, and slowed down even more as she saw all the commotion at Lam’s store. Someone told her why and she realized she had left her four tickets home. She sent her sister back to get them and stood in the shop door, Mexican songs thumping on a radio in the background, as she talked on the phone.
“I can’t believe I did not bring the tickets with me,” she said, feet jiggling as though she was running in place. “I’m so nervous now, just waiting. I usually buy one--maybe once a week or sometimes once a month--but I’ve never won. I don’t know why I keep playing, but there’s always hope that I’ll win.
“God willing, I’ve won. It would be incredible to be so lucky.”
Back at the shop, Lam was looking a little worn, having repeated her story for the umpteenth time to the umpteenth reporter while trying to deal with customers. She’s from Vietnam, she repeats, and moved here more than 20 years ago. She owns the business, bought it a year ago and it’s in her name but the whole family helps run it. She’ll use some of the money to help out relatives back in Vietnam, and use some for herself and her husband. No, no real plans yet.
Brad Slater, who lives nearby, woke up and saw the news on TV that Kelly’s sold the winning ticket. Since that’s where he buys all his tickets, he headed over to check his numbers before going to work as a chauffeur.
“My heart started fluttering,” said Slater, 34. “I thought that it’s going to happen for me, that this is the day my life changes. Not.”
He laughed.
“I gotta tell you, if it was me, I wouldn’t be going [to work driving limos] today. I would have been in the back being chauffeured.”
Ralph Doll, 57, who retired in January as an electrician, hovered outside Lam’s store but couldn’t really say why. His wife owns Garden Park Barbers, specializing in $4 haircuts, and he just wandered on over from her side of the small L-shaped strip mall, which also is home to two thrift stores, a bar, a video store and a hair-and-nail shop. Most have Spanish words painted on their windows.
“No, I don’t play the lottery,” he said, adding that his wife, Alicia Doll, does. He prefers rolling dice in Las Vegas. “I’m into the statistics. She’s into the dream.”
This time, the dream was someone else’s.
“No, I’ve never won much,” said Alicia Doll, 55. “I won $60 or something once, but not much. . . . When you see something like this, you like to see if you can win. I’m very glad someone from over here won it.”
A few minutes later, Keytan’s sister pulled into the parking lot. Keytan quickly locked the music-shop door and they hurried across the parking lot, maneuvering among the television trucks and cameras until they got inside, where Lam was still being interviewed.
The two sisters ignored the cameras and stood, heads together, as Keytan matched her numbers against a small printout of the winners. “8, 25, 26 . . . “ she said, slowing down as it became clear that she didn’t have the right numbers.
With a rueful smile she tossed her tickets on the counter and turned for the door.
“No,” Keytan said, walking out into the sunshine, “not me.”
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RICH EXPERIENCE: Some big Lotto winners find it has a high price. A19
Times staff writers Lisa Richardson and Marc Ballon contributed to this report.
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Cash Payout
If just one person claims the huge prize from Wednesday’s winning SuperLotto ticket, it will be the biggest individual prize ever in Orange County and among the largest in the state. The jackpot was valued at $87 million if paid out over 26 years, but the owner of the winning ticket opted to collect one lump sum payment upfront.
