Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 17, 1991 TAG: 9104170328
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: SACRAMENTO, CALIF. LENGTH: Short
The jackpot for tonight's drawing was estimated at a national record of $120 million, depending on sales. That's more than a third of the $285 million in gold that thousands mined 142 years ago and it surpasses the national record of $115.5 million.
The sales pace was an average of 25 times normal at 9,500 ticket sale locations statewide.
Players faced 1-in-23-million odds that any one ticket would win. They pick six numbers from 1 to 53 for their $1 bet.
A sole winner in the Lotto 6-53 drawing would receive about $4 million annually, after income tax withholding, for 20 years.
The stage was set for the frenzied betting when nobody won the $65 million jackpot in Sunday's drawing, and the money was added to the pot for today. It was the eighth consecutive jackpot rollover.
Helping to fuel sales was the chance to become the nation's biggest individual lotto winner.
"There's no question about it," said Terri La Fleur of Gaming and Wagering Business magazine. The record is held by a Florida lotto winner of more than $55 million in September 1988, she said.
by CNB