Sacramento resident Michele Spilman took the coincidence of her birthday with the record $1.6 million Mega Millions jackpot as a good sign, and decided to take the plunge and buy her first ever lottery ticket.
Spilman was one of a long line of lottery hopefuls to visit Lichine’s Liquor and Deli in South Land Park on Tuesday. Lichine’s is a popular place to buy lottery tickets, as it is listed on the California State Lottery website as the sixth luckiest place statewide for winnings of $1 million or more.
She said if she won she would probably pay off her mom’s house, and maybe buy a new house for herself.
“Or add a pool,” she said, laughing.
Spilman said she thought she’d take the payout over time, rather than the lump sum.
“Because then as you go along, you get like, ‘oh, here’s some money!’” she said.
Camile Fletcher was buying tickets with a pool of nine coworkers at U.C. Davis.
The coworkers are all clinicians, including social workers, psychologists and Fletcher, a nurse.
Their plans for the jackpot including taking care of family and friends, traveling and donating money to charity.
Of course, if any of the numbers she purchased hit, she would have to share the money, which they intended to take as a lump sum, with nine other people.
“Which is totally fine – more than happy to do that,” she said.
Maria Larim bought two each of Mega Millions and Powerball.
Larim said she would buy houses for her family if she won, adding, when asked if she had many relatives, “It’s a lot of family members but it’s a lot of money!”
She would use the rest “To do whatever I want to do,” she said.
Which includes:
“Help some poor people – you can do so much good for people, for family members, for everybody!”
Larim has only bought lottery tickets a couple of times before.
“But this time is actually really, really, really good!” she said