Would-be millionaires seek a piece of $193 million California lottery jackpot

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) _ Californians and out-of-staters alike scrambled to get in on an unprecedented $193 million lottery jackpot, flocking to buy tickets before Saturday night's drawing. <br><br>The

Sunday, February 17th 2002, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) _ Californians and out-of-staters alike scrambled to get in on an unprecedented $193 million lottery jackpot, flocking to buy tickets before Saturday night's drawing.

The winning numbers were 6-11-31-32-39 and the meganumber was 20.

In the city of Calexico, throngs of buyers made the short walk from Mexicali, Mexico to stock up on tickets.

At Super Shopping Apple Market, which has sold three $1 million-plus tickets over the past 15 years, many buyers came with little more than a will and a way, said manager Joe Moreno.

``A lot don't even know how to play, but as long as they have a dollar bill in their hand, we explain how and hopefully that's another winning ticket we're going to sell,'' Moreno said.

The $193 million sum is the largest single-state U.S. jackpot, and the fifth-largest including multistate games, the California Lottery said. The biggest lottery payout in U.S. history was $363 million in May 2000 for the multistate Powerball game.

The previous record jackpot in California was $141 million on June 23, 2001.

The jackpot was such a draw that Web sites sprang up to illegally offer SuperLotto tickets to out-of-state buyers who didn't come to California. The rules state that a ticket must be bought in person, lottery officials said.

Sales surged as the drawing drew near, lottery officials said, and it was evident in places such as the San Francisco 7-Eleven store where Ed Koehler of Scottsdale, Ariz., went to buy $10 of tickets with his wife Chris.

``When I hear about it on the news, that's when I go and buy,'' Koehler said.

The couple was spending the weekend in San Francisco and reveled in their timing, though their chances of winning are one in 41.4 million.

Store manager Ace Valencia said the typical volume of 2,000 tickets a day was likely to jump to 10,000 by Saturday evening, and some customers were buying hundreds of tickets at a time.

``Everybody is going gaga,'' he said.

The story was the same across the state in Needles, where ticket sales were up sevenfold, said Needles Point Liquor store owner Brian Lim.

Lim, speaking by telephone, said most of his customers came from Arizona.

Among those in his store early Saturday was John Bittner, who made the 15-mile drive from Fort Mojave, Ariz., for a breakfast of sausage and waffles _ and to pick up five tickets.

``That's what we line up for,'' said Bittner, 66, a retired bank employee.

Al Castellano, the California man who won the record $141 million last year, also was trying his luck.

On Saturday, Castellano bought $20 worth of tickets at Union Avenue Liquors in San Jose, the same place he bought his ticket last year.

``You never know,'' Castellano said.