$141-Million Question: Who Hit That Jackpot?

This much lottery officials know: The winner of one of the largest single-state jackpots in U.S. history is out there.

Somewhere.

They know that a single ticket with all six winning numbers was purchased at a San Jose liquor store, making owner Alex Wang the overjoyed recipient of more than $700,000--the vendor’s portion of the big lottery payout.

But what state officials--and millions of green-eyed lottery losers--can’t yet fathom is whether the lucky ticket-holder is an individual or part of a now slap-happy office pool.

They don’t know whether California’s newest multimillionaire has already presented his or her employer with walking papers and has popped open the champagne bottles or is huddling in top secrecy with newly hired lawyers and accountants--the $141-million ticket clenched in a hand or stashed in a safe-deposit box.

Lottery spokeswoman Norma Minas says there’s one safe bet to make about the winner, who has yet to step forward despite a weekend media blitz.

“They’re not sleeping much,” she said, “because I don’t think they can stand it. How would you like to be holding that ticket?”

On Monday, as lottery officials in Sacramento waited for the winner to emerge, they got down to business at the Union Avenue Liquors, located in a mini-mall in south San Jose.

Officials Sunday retrieved the lottery machine that issued the winning ticket to ensure that there had been no tampering, replacing it with a new machine. They say they will return in several weeks with Wang’s winnings of 0.5% of the total jackpot.

Wang, 56, became the lottery’s most recent instant celebrity as hordes of reporters camped out in front of his store, interviewing the owner as well as his army of regular customers.

Wang learned of his good fortune at 9 a.m. Sunday when he arrived at his store to find the reporters and several customers waiting for him. “It’s pretty overwhelming,” he said.

The owner isn’t sure when he sold the winning ticket. “When nobody won on Wednesday the jackpot shot up,” he said. “When I got to work Thursday, my first customer bought $200 in tickets. It was like that until Saturday night.”

Wang plans to bank his winnings and use some to help pay his daughter’s college tuition at the University of Michigan. His windfall proves you don’t have to pay to play--just work hard.

“It’s a lot of work to sell those tickets,” he said.

“But retailers do it in the hopes that one customer will win and they’ll get their cut.”

For many lottery fanatics on Monday, the anticipation of winning had turned into curiosity about just who had dared to beat them to it. When a reporter called directory assistance for the number to Wang’s store, an operator asked, unsolicited, “Do you have the winning ticket?”

Brisk ticket sales ballooned the cash jackpot to one of the biggest in U.S. history when nine drawings passed without a big winner.

Sales were about $43 million on Saturday alone, with 84,000 tickets sold every minute in the hours leading up to the 7:58 p.m. drawing.

Officials said the odds of winning were 1 in 41 million.

Officials probably won’t have to wait long for their winner, who will sacrifice the prize to state public schools if the money isn’t claimed within 180 days.

Once the winner comes forward, a security interview will be held about when and where the ticket was bought. Minas says that most winners are overjoyed, if you don’t count the pool members who argued over their cut of a recent prize.

And for the winner, Minas has a word of advice: Don’t do what Ruben Montoya did earlier this year.

The Upland resident claimed his prize with just hours to spare on the final day of eligibility. “All those weeks, he didn’t realize that he’d won, until his wife saw his local grocer being interviewed on TV, and a bell went off in his head,” Minas said.

“We hope this winner doesn’t wait that long.”