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Lottery

A small fortune buys shot at big pot

A ticket for the holiday raffle costs $20.

By ELISABETH DYER
Published November 22, 2006

TAMPA - It will take convenience store clerk LaDonna Mickle more than three hours to earn the $20 needed to buy a ticket for the Florida Lottery's latest holiday game.

But she figures the game, a raffle that will award 10 winners $1-million each, will be worth it.

"It's expensive," said the single mother, 35, "but I've got to try it."

Mickle had to wait to cash her paycheck, but about 15 other people at the Radiant Foods on Kennedy Boulevard where she works bought tickets for the Holiday Millionaire Raffle on Monday, the first day of sales.

Nearly 20 percent of the 1.25-million total tickets available were snatched up Monday, lottery officials said.

"It's obviously a hit with our players," said lottery spokesman Alfred Bea.

The deadline to buy tickets is Dec. 30, or when they run out. Winners will be drawn on New Year's Day.

Because tickets are often given as gifts, lottery sales are brisk during the holiday season, officials said, and holiday-themed scratch-off tickets prove popular. This year, for the first time, lottery officials are trying a different, pricier approach.

"It's basically an old-fashioned kind of a raffle," Bea said - a first for the lottery. From the proceeds, $9.5-million will go to education.

It differs from a lottery where players can pick their numbers. In lotteries, sometimes no one wins. Sometimes there's more than one winner.

Tickets for the raffle are being sold in numerical order across Florida and will stop with ticket No. 1,250,000.

The drawing goes like this: 10 tickets win $1-million; 20 tickets win $100,000; 100 tickets win $10,000.

All 130 winning tickets will be drawn on New Years Day. If tickets aren't redeemed in 180 days, alternates will be picked.

Odds of winning a prize are 1 in 9,615 if all tickets are sold. Odds of winning $1-million will be 1 in 125,000.

Elisabeth Dyer can be reached at edyer@sptimes.com or 813 226-3321.

[Last modified November 22, 2006, 05:45:27]