Florida Lotto fever hits once again with jackpot at $82 million

Wednesday, April 19, 2006 posted 02:55 AM EDT

Ticket sales increase for chance at $82 million

Renee Whiteaker won't buy a new car. She already has a truck. She also has a place to live.

The 19-year-old convenience store clerk has other plans if she wins the estimated $82 million Florida Lotto tonight.

"My dad is real sick with cancer," she said. "I'd probably do something to help him."

Whiteaker is one of many area residents putting down a few bucks for the 1-in-23-million chance of winning the jackpot.

Darrell Lundahl, of Port Charlotte, knows how he'd spend the $82 million.

"I'd buy the house I'm living in for my mother, brother and sister," he said. "I'd buy my daughter's house for her, too."

Then, he'd move to Las Vegas.

Lundahl's brother, Curtis, spent $5 on tickets Tuesday at the Rainbow Food Mart on Harbor Boulevard in Port Charlotte.

"If I won, I'd pay off my house and pay off my sister's car," he said. "The rest, I'd take a trip."

Curtis Lundahl's dream vacation: Hawaii.

Roy Kuruvilla, a clerk at the Rainbow Food Mart, said more people are buying lottery tickets since no one matched all six numbers in Saturday's drawing -- bumping up tonight's estimated jackpot to $82 million, the seventh highest in the Florida Lotto's history.

"They're paying more," Kuruvilla said. "They're taking a chance."

Kuruvilla, also, is taking a chance and playing tonight.

"I would want a nice house," he said.

He'd also like a Ferrari, he said.

Customers at the Sunoco gas station and convenience store, at the corner of Kings Highway and U.S. 41 in Charlotte Harbor, are also buying more tickets.

"We've been putting out a lot," Whiteaker said of the sales.

Whiteaker's father, Robert, is one of them.

"My dad bought $200 worth," she said.

They don't want a fancy car or home. They just want the best possible medical care to prolong 50-year-old Robert's life.

"I want to get him some help," Whiteaker said.

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