She's just won the $88 million California SuperLotto Plus jackpot, but Pamela Bazan says no one should expect to see Ferraris in her Rossmoor driveway or to catch her on a diamond shopping spree at Tiffany & Co. And there certainly will be no private jets whisking the retired bookkeeper and her husband off on a round-the-world adventure.
"We're painfully careful people," Bazan said. "But I wouldn't mind looking into a nice cruise, as long as it's not during hurricane season."
Bazan, 55, bought her ticket at a Seal Beach liquor store Friday. It turned out to be the only winning ticket for Saturday's SuperLotto jackpot.
An excited Bazan arrived with her husband at the California Lottery's Santa Ana office Monday morning and chose to receive a one-time payout worth $46.9 million, said the Lottery's Rosa Escutia. After federal taxes are deducted the money is not taxed by the state Bazan will pocket $35 million. Had she chosen payments over 26 years, the installments would have been worth $88 million before taxes.
Bazan said she was still trying to grasp the scope of her new wealth. "I don't know if it ever will [sink in]," she said. "How does anyone plan for that kind of money?"
After winning $10 from the lottery's New Year's Eve drawing, Bazan rolled the winnings back into 10 "quick-pick" tickets at Carriage Trade Liquor on Seal Beach Boulevard. One contained the winning combination of 16-9-13-21-5 and 4.
Store owner Ed Bieler said he did not recall Bazan coming into his store and did not recognize her voice when she telephoned him Sunday at 7:15 a.m. "She congratulated me, and everyone in the background was shouting and screaming," Bieler said. For selling the winning ticket, Bieler will receive $440,000 half of 1% of the jackpot.
Bieler said he, like Bazan, was stunned by the jackpot. "It's just a great feeling," he said. "I know now that I can put my kids through college."
The enormous jackpot will aid other students as well, since state law calls for 34% of all Lotto ticket sales more than $52 million from this drawing to supplement public school funding.
Bazan scored the winning combination after 11 draws over five weeks resulted in no winners, Escutia said. The jackpot was the ninth-largest in the state's history, she said.
At Bieler's store, regular Lotto players expressed good-natured frustration.
"I saw the ticket came from this store and almost killed myself reaching for my ticket. I always buy my tickets here. It should have been me!" joked Angelique Simpson, as she filled out another Lotto card for this week's drawing.
Bazan said she plans to place the money, which she will receive in three to five weeks, in government bonds and other low-risk investments until she can decide what to do with it.
Along with the possible cruise, Bazan said she plans to pay off mortgages for her three children and perhaps buy a new house in Rossmoor.
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