Donald "Boo-boo" Smith is, in his own words, "a Greenwich original."

At 60 years old, the Chickahominy native has never had a telephone -- let alone a cell phone -- or used a credit card. He has not owned a car since the late 1960s. Until recently, he had never opened a bank account.

"I'm living my life the way I want to," Smith said over coffee yesterday at the Plaza Restaurant on Railroad Avenue, where he can be found most mornings. "I don't live for the Joneses."

Instead, Smith said he has spent most of the past 40 years traveling, reading, pursuing an assortment of hobbies, making friends and supporting himself with odd jobs.

Over the years, he's become a formidable billiards player, he's hitch-hiked across the country, been married and divorced, and spent about a dozen years in California. For nearly 50 years, Smith, a Greenwich High School graduate, has been a regular gambler, wagering on all manner of sporting dvents and games of skill and chance.

"Gambling was a right of passage growing up in Chickahominy in the 1950s," he said.

And it is gambling that accounts for the colorful Greenwich resident's latest windfall: Earlier this month, Smith won $100,000 playing an instant lottery game at Greenwich Cigar and Stationery.

After decades of playing the lottery nearly every day, Smith said it was about time.

"I always knew I'd hit it one day," he said. "The way I look at it, I've been putting my money in the Connecticut bank all these years, and now I'm drawing it out. . . It's a nice return on investment."

Smith nearly didn't buy a lottery ticket that day. After years of gambling, he has superstitions about lucky days, weeks, even months, and Friday, July 16, was not supposed to be lucky. But an employee at the cigar store persuaded him to buy a ticket, Smith scratched it off and saw immediately that he had won.