SACRAMENTO – Eugene Salek, a retiree from the San Diego area, came forward today as the lucky winner of the $38 million SuperLOTTO Plus® jackpot from Wednesday, May 2, 2007!
Salek woke up this morning and did the same thing he has always done since he retired as a Department Manager from Sears in 1990, he got up, made a cup of coffee and checked his Lotto tickets. He realized right away that he had won, but he didn’t get excited, “I finished my breakfast and I called the Lottery office,” explained Salek. “My wife got up, I made her breakfast and after she ate, I said, ‘Get dressed, we’re going out.’ She asked me where we were going and I told her it was a surprise.” Once in the car, Mrs. Salek couldn’t stand it so her husband of 49 years confessed, “I got some numbers in the Lottery and she asked me, ‘How many?’ and I said, ‘All of ‘em!’”
Salek said the only two other lucky experiences he has ever had was that he got his wife to marry him and he once won two tickets to a Luau in Hawaii.
The winner chose the annuity option of 26 annual payments. Salek’s first payment will be approximately $950,000 and will graduate to about $1.9 million by the 26th year. He said he doesn’t know what he’ll do with his winnings, probably invest most of it.
Salek purchased the winning SuperLOTTO Plus ticket at Stater Brothers in Vista in San Diego County. For selling the winning ticket, the retailer will receive a bonus of $190,000. Salek purchased $5 worth of Quick Picks, but since he doesn’t like to get them all on one ticket, he got five tickets with one line of numbers apiece on them.
The California Lottery contributes at least 34 cents of every dollar that players spend on Lottery products to public education. The Lottery contributed $1.28 billion to public education in 2005-06 out of sales of $3.58 billion, the sixth year in a row the Lottery has provided more than $1 billion in supplemental funding for education. Retailers won too, earning over $252 million in compensation last year selling Lottery products. Since its inception in 1985, the Lottery has contributed more than $18 billion to California schools.