Store workers celebrate Lotto winner
Wednesday, April 26, 2006 posted 10:54 AM EDT
THE VILLAGES -- Circle K employees prepared for the big day Tuesday by straightening bags of potato chips and aligning bottles of chocolate syrup on the shelves.
When the moment arrived, Crystal Coleman's hands were shaking as she accepted a check for $30,000 -- the convenience store's cut of last week's $87.9 million Florida Lotto jackpot.
"I've never held this much money at one time," said Coleman, district manager of the store in The Villages that sold one of two tickets matching the six winning numbers in the April 19 drawing.
Company executives had not determined what to do with the money. But Coleman said it is likely that the store's employees would receive some of the money "for all their hard work."
Circle K split the $60,000 retail award -- the biggest in lottery history -- with the Port St. Lucie store that sold the other winning ticket.
The state lottery office pays a retailer $10,000 for selling a winning Lotto ticket and adds another $5,000 for every time the jackpot rolls over.
Neither winner has contacted lottery officials, but patrons and employees at the store on County Road 466 in Sumter County have been celebrating the good fortune.
"Every day I hope someone walks in the door and says, 'I'm the winner,' " Coleman said, surrounded by balloons and lottery signs, and giggling at employees who had tied balloons to their ponytails.
"When they [lottery officials] first called, the whole staff was jumping up and down. I thought someone here had won."
Each ticket is worth about $44 million before taxes. Winners have 180 days to claim the prize. Mike Purcell, district manager for the Florida Lottery, said only 25 winners have not claimed their jackpots since Lotto began in 1988.
Tickets found, checked
On Tuesday, customers shared stories of how they searched their homes for misplaced tickets, only to discover they had not matched a single number in the 12-13-17-27-32-36 combination.
Retirees and construction workers bought some of the 5,000 tickets sold at the Circle K for the drawing.
Some patrons said they hope the winner was a day laborer who can retire in style. Others say they hope it is a retiree.
This is the fourth winning lottery ticket sold in The Villages since August. Coleman said the retirees buy them in "humongous amounts."
Susan Losh, a sociologist at Florida State University, has studied who buys tickets and how they select their numbers.
She conducted a study in Tallahassee that found people with higher education bought more lottery tickets than people with high-school diplomas.
Myth about buyers
She said the theory that more lower-income people play the lottery is a myth, formed by researchers who used ZIP codes to determine which neighborhoods sold the most tickets.
Convenience stores in poorer neighborhoods sold more tickets, but Losh said that data did not address who bought the tickets.
Since few convenience stores are located in affluent neighborhoods, she said, those studies never specified those wealthier people's habits.
During three separate surveys between 1991 and 1997, Losh found that 40 percent of players uses special dates -- wedding anniversaries, birthdays, dates of their divorce -- to select the numbers.
More winners, such as the two who won last week's jackpot -- buy Quick Pick tickets.
Irene Miller and Cornelius Rodgers live down the street from the Circle K.
They came to watch the store's lottery party on Tuesday to snap a picture for Miller's sister in New York. The sister didn't believe Miller's lottery store had sold the winning ticket.
Miller has been playing the lottery for years and made sure to pick up another Quick Pick for today's $7 million jackpot. "It's a dollar and a dream," she said.
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