Elian’s Numbers Come Up for Fla. Players

Believing in Elian Gonzalez was the ticket to a winning lottery number for nearly 200 people who played the address of the Miami house at the center of the sensational custody battle.

Following the announcement Thursday that a relative of Elian would purchase the Little Havana home at 2319 N.W. Second St., where the boy stayed for months during the custody fight and where federal agents seized him last spring, many Florida lottery players bet the combination: 2-3-1-9, the Miami Herald reported Saturday.

The tickets paid off as Florida’s Play 4 winning combination for Thursday was: 2-3-1-9, the Herald reported. The Herald reported 192 winners of $5,000 in the Play 4 game.

“The number of people who won is unusual,” said Alfred Bea, a lottery spokesman.

Elian, who was found at sea on Thanksgiving Day last year, was brought to the Little Havana house when he was taken in by the family of his great-uncle Lazaro Gonzalez. But the boy’s father requested his son be returned to Cuba. Elian’s Miami relatives refused, and a legal battle ensued.

The Miami relatives lost the legal fight but still balked at returning the boy. In April, armed federal agents raided the home in a dramatic move to reunite him with his father. Elian flew home to Cuba with his father in June.

Delfin Gonzalez, a lobster fisherman who lives in the Florida Keys, purchased the house for $80,000 and plans to keep it as a symbol of Elian’s controversial stay.

Lazaro Gonzalez and his family moved out shortly after the raid.