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Lotto dreams making cash registers ring
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[Times photo: Jim damaske]
Virginia Cariker buys her Lotto tickets at Henry's Newsstand in Clearwater on Friday.
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By MIKE BRASSFIELD and BABITA PERSAUD
© St. Petersburg Times
published September 7, 2002
What would you do with $85-million?
"I'd buy a purple limo and drive around the country for a year or so, and then I'd open a blues club," Sandy Atkinson, 49, said as she bought Florida Lotto tickets Friday at World Liquors in St. Petersburg.
The Lotto has rolled over 10 times without a winner, raising tonight's jackpot to an estimated $85-million -- the biggest lottery prize in the country right now, and the fifth-largest in Florida history.
A jackpot that big fuels a lot of dreams.
Lottery officials expect to sell 50,000 tickets a minute this evening. A sole winner of tonight's jackpot would get $2.83-million a year for 30 years, or a one-time payout of $43-million before taxes.
The odds of winning: 1 in 23-million. It got the attention of 18-year-old Kristina Santiago, who normally skips the twice-weekly drawing.
"This is my first time (buying a ticket)," she said at the Radiant convenience store on Fletcher Avenue in Carrollwood. "I saw a big neon sign and I said, 'I have to play. It's $85-million.' "
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