Despite the Odds, Record Jackpot Has Their Number
They mounted a historic run on liquor and grocery stores Saturday, hundreds of thousands of Californians taking their one-dollar swipes at over-the-counter bliss while picking up, eh, maybe a Twix and some Chiclets.
The state’s record lottery jackpot of $141 million had people snapping up 50,000 tickets a minute. They culled their numbers from fortune cookies and astrological charts and odd rituals that had one commodities broker from L.A. asking “the prettiest girl in the room” for her age.
If someone’s madness brought 45, 3, 22, 43, 44 and mega-number 8, that person can claim clairvoyance. For the rest, it’s back to the grind a few bucks lighter.
The chance at $141 million drew out people who had never bought a ticket for one of the mere $30-million jackpots. The difference, after all, is no abstraction to many workaday people, who knew exactly what they’d buy.
“If I won, I’d buy a big meatball sandwich,’ said Robert Armagost, a 30-year-old math teacher from Pacoima who, clearly, plays only when “it’s over $100 million.”
Over in the San Gabriel Valley, no previous jackpot could lure Nikki Krout, an avowed nongambler, to the SuperLotto Plus machine. But there she was at the Jug and Jigger liquor store in West Covina, hunched over a stack of crumpled Lotto tickets, trying to figure out how to fill the darn things out.
“This is really difficult,” said the 52-year-old woman, making a mess of chicken-scratch with her pen.
Krout said she had a sober-minded reason for wanting the money: “I hope I win, because by the time I get old enough to get Social Security, there’s not going to be enough. That’s the government’s lottery.”
Yes, they clung to their lofty plans. The American Dream via 7-Eleven: Tell the boss to get lost, dump that lazy sack you married, and head to the islands to get rid of the farmer’s tan.
Even the 1-in-41-million chance of winning didn’t deter the dreamers. Some came from Nevada. Others waited in lines that stretched for hours into the street under the scorching summer sun.
At Bluebird Liquor in Hawthorne, where someone hit it big two years ago with $16 million, the lines have looked like Disneyland ever since. The store on Friday sold more than 90,000 tickets. And a clerk said one man came from out of town to buy $4,000 worth of them.
A strange--well, let’s say absurd--frugality also emerged from this scene. Patrons who bought $2 worth of store items along with their tickets could stand in a short 30-minute line. But if they were buying only Lotto tickets, they had to wait in a 2 1/2-hour line.
Among those standing in the short line was Becky Merriweather, a county worker who’s making no fortune and had a peculiar vision of affluence. “I would go to the Eiffel Tower and throw $100,000 from the top and have fun watching people scramble to grab it.”
Down in Costa Mesa, meanwhile, a man purchased $50 worth of numbers at Ralphs, saying it was his second run at it for the week. Ken refused to give his last name because, he said, “I’m totally sure we will win, and I don’t want people hunting me down looking for money.”
And at a North Hollywood convenience store, Jeff Shaffer, 28, just got off the bus from Chicago when something in the air inspired him to play the lottery for the first time.
“I found someone’s Lotto numbers,” Shaffer said. “I was walking through the park, and the wind blew this handwritten sheet up against my shoe. I figured it was an omen, so I might as well give it a try.”
A moment later, a man in a paint-spattered T-shirt called out the window of his van as he pulled away, waving his Lotto ticket in hand.
“If I win, you can call me the house painter formerly known as Joe Smith,” he yelled, reading from his ticket, “because I’ll be changing my name to 2-7-13-22-31-mega-12.”
The prize built up over the past month as nine drawings came and went without anyone picking all six winning numbers.
The jackpot is the largest in the nation for a single state. The previous record, also in California, was $118.8 million in 1991. It went to 10 winning tickets and 54 winners. In March, Sang Cho of Moraga became the lottery’s highest individual jackpot winner by claiming$89 million.
The record for a national jackpot was last year’s $363 million for the seven-state Big Game lottery.
Though the drawing was at 7:58 p.m. Saturday, lottery officials will not know until this morning if there is a winner. They will post the retailer on the lottery Web site.
Winners cannot claim the prize until Monday and have 180 days to do so. If the money rolls over again, the jackpot will be about $180 million, said Norma Minas, a lottery spokeswoman. With a $141-million jackpot, a single winner could choose to receive 26 annual payments, with the first totaling about $3.5 million and the final payment bringing about $7.1 million before taxes. The winner could also choose to be paid in one lump sum of about $70 million.
In either scenario, schools could receive as much as $80 million from interest accrued when money from ticket sales is invested by the state.
But let’s face it, education was not the prime topic on people’s minds Saturday. One family of four didn’t drive from Henderson, Nev., after all, to help California’s schools. Joyce Fong came to George’s Liquor Store in Chinatown to buy $45 worth of tickets. She heard it was the lucky place to go.
“It’s a four-hour drive,” she said. “It’s worth it.”
Also in line there was M.W. Johnson, an astrologer who spends $104 a year on lottery tickets. Of course, he buys them only when the planetary alignment is good. “If the whim doesn’t grab me, I just don’t do it.”
The lottery is nothing if it’s not about mystical forces.
At an Orange County gas station, Gary Almquist and his family said they don’t generally buy lottery tickets because they are very spiritual people. “God takes care of our needs.”
But not quite $141-million worth of needs, so Almquist just couldn’t resist this time. “We bought one ticket.”
Times staff writers Noaki Schwartz, Erika Hayasaki, Matthew Ebnet and Carol Chambers contributed to this story.
