Workers Unite for a Big Payday
Kim Sichta figures there won’t be any need to take up an office collection for her goodbye party. With any luck, the $35 that she collected Friday will easily cover it.
Sichta organized the office pool at her downtown Los Angeles architectural firm for today’s record-breaking $180-million-plus California lottery. Like thousands of other groups across the state, she and six co-workers joined forces in hopes of increasing their odds of winning the largest single-state jackpot ever in the United States.
“There are only eight of us in the office,” said Sichta, a designer who lives in Sherman Oaks. “The other person decided not to join in--she’s watching her money.
“But of course, she won’t have a job if we win,” she joked. “We’ll be closing our office.”
The take-this-job-and-shove-it attitude was common among those who spent their lunch breaks at lottery outlets across Los Angeles County. With a jackpot so big, there is plenty of money to share. So why not buck the SuperLotto Plus drawing’s 1-in-41 million odds by sharing multiple tickets with co-workers?
In the lotto line at the “7th & Fig” newsstand between two Figueroa Street high-rises, owner Sanjay Khetani caught the fever. He formed a pool of his own for those without office colleagues. “I have 21 people who put in $20 each. And we rolled over $83 we won in Wednesday’s drawing,” Khetani said.
Insurance company operations manager Paul Williamson of Downey had $190 collected from 35 co-workers in his 48th-floor office. “Being in the business we’re in, we know how to figure the odds. The odds stink,” Williams said. “About half the people in our office are in the pool. Some secretaries put in two bucks. The executives put in $20.”
SuperLotto officials do the math and divvy up the amounts that winning office pool participants are entitled to for groups up to 100 people, said state lottery spokeswoman Norma Minas.
More than two-thirds of California’s big jackpots have been won by groups. So far, Minas said, the state has avoided the kinds of squabbles between office pool participants that have sparked legal fights elsewhere.
California lotto players are so mellow, in fact, that Los Angeles coffeehouse manager Mary Ann Champaine kicked in the cash so several of her workers were certain to be included when she purchased the winning $87-million SuperLotto Plus jackpot ticket in October 2000. Thanks to her generosity, all 13 of her workers won $6,692,307 each.
Things do not always go that smoothly with office pools outside California, however.
Last year, 14 taxi drivers in Atlanta tried to claim a share of a $90-million lottery ticket, claiming they were part of a pool organized by 37 other cabbies at Hartsfield Atlanta International Airport. In Maine, four co-workers sought a share of a $295-million multi-state Powerball jackpot won by a ticket they suspected was purchased as part of their office pool.
Minas said those conducting office pools are encouraged to make a list of all participants and give photocopies of it--along with photocopies of the lottery tickets purchased by the group--to everyone involved.
Los Angeles health-care billing company worker Kimberly Daniels said her friends go even further.
“We have a contract we all sign with the names and lottery numbers listed. Our department manager keeps the tickets,” Daniels said. Legal secretary Sheila Sanders said she planned to personally pay for photocopies of the $60 worth of lottery tickets she purchased Friday for her dozen-member office pool. That way there is no conflict with her law firm over the winnings that Sanders, of Long Beach, was confident are coming.
“I’m cleaning out my desk tonight,” she joked. “We’ve already told the firm we’re not coming in Monday.”
She wasn’t the only one.
In the San Fernando Valley, car lot sales manager Mike Brown was laughing at the odds but not at the $10 he and 10 other co-workers invested in their lottery pool. “The only people who think they’ll win with a pool are people who can’t do math,” the Woodland Hills man said. Nonetheless, Brown pledged that he “wouldn’t be like the guy that wins a billion dollars and keeps working screwing light bulbs” if they win.
At a nearby escrow office, Joe Caprio joined a pool with 19 other people to purchase 117 tickets.
“I don’t take it too seriously,” said Caprio, of Woodland Hills. “But I join just in case. You’ll feel left out and you’d be mad at yourself for making a huge mistake.”
