Man wins big in Tennessee lottery

Mar 5, 2004, 4:18 am (Post a comment)

Tennessee Lottery

Russell Burks of Shelbyville, Tennessee garnered a $100,000 prize recently to join a list containing the four highest prizes paid by the Tennessee Lottery to date.

Also buying and scratching off their Jackpot tickets to net $100,000 were Deborah Baker of Lascassas, John Leegan of Big Sandy and Willis Pulley of Brentwood.

Kym Gerlock, Tennessee lottery communications director, said Burks had specifically requested no interviews and wished to not have any additional information provided to the media.

"Beyond that, all we're allowed to do is to provide the name and the community where they're from which is public record," she said.

Ms. Gerlock said the recent $100,000 winners reflect how well the Tennessee Lottery has done since its Jan. 20 inception date.

By Wednesday, the lottery had recorded $153 million in gross ticket sales and had paid out more than half of that to players.

All Tennessee Lottery profits will go to education programs. Most immediately, the lottery is charged with raising at least $88 million by July 1 to fund scholarships for an estimated 65,000 students expected to attend Tennessee colleges and universities next fall.

So far, $48 million about 30 percent of the total proceeds, has been earmarked for education, Mrs. Gerlock said.

"We're more than half way there," she said, referring to the $88 million goal.

Since the lottery's inception demand for tickets has sometimes out paced available supplies, Ms. Gerlock said.

To remedy the situation, four games were added several days earlier than intended in late January to keep pace with the public's interest in playing the lottery, she said.

Rebecca Paul, president and CEO of the Tennessee Lottery, summed up the lottery's progress.

"I'm pleased at the level of excitement and volume of sales, which have put us on a rapid path to raise millions of dollars for education programs in Tennessee," she said.

The games introduced at that time were:

* Sizzling 7's: Find a black "7" symbol, win prize shown for that symbol. Find a red "7" symbol and win double the prize shown for that symbol. Ticket price: $2. Overall odds of winning: 1 in 3.71

* Black Jack: Scratch off the entire play area. If the hand beats the dealer's total, win prize shown below that hand. Ticket price: $1. Overall odds: 1 in 4.04

* Volunteer Millionaire: Match three like amounts and win up to $1,000. If ticket reveals the word "entry" three times, it is eligible for one of three $1 million Grand Prize Drawings in conjunction with the Tennessee Millionaire instant game. Ticket price: $1. Overall odds: 1 in 3.95

* Gold Fever: Match any of the players numbers to the winning number shown on the card and win the prize shown for that number. Get a "gold bar" symbol and instantly win all five prizes shown.

Within the past week computerized games have been introduced to the public.

Ticket sales for CASH 3, the Lottery's first computerized game in which players choose three numbers to match as many numbers drawn by the lottery began Monday.

Winning numbers were announced that evening as balls are drawn from three separate machines.

Each machine contains 10 balls numbered 0-9. Players select a three-digit number from 000-999 and also can select one of seven different ways to play and win.

CASH 3 ticket prices range from 50 cents to $1, depending on how a player chooses to play, and prizes range from $40 to $500.

Ms. Gerlock said CASH 3 in its first two days proved to be an outstanding success.

The prize payout Wednesday from Tuesday's drawing was $247,660 while the prize payout from the day before was $56,330.

Ms. Gerlock said CASH 3's inception appears to be optimistic for what lies ahead.

"We're very pleased, and we want to encourage the public to have a good time and support the education programs in the State of Tennessee," she said, referring to the lottery.

Tullahoma News

Tags for this story

Other popular tags

Comments

Nobody has commented on this story yet.

Subscribe to this news story
Guest