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American Morning

Lotto Winner Still Unknown in California

Aired June 25, 2001 - 11:15   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: While folks across California are crossing their fingers frantically and checking their lotto tickets, let's check the scene at Alex Wang's liquor store in San Jose.

Reporter Lisa Bernard is there. She's with our affiliate KNTV. Good morning.

LISA BERNARD, KNTV REPORTER: Good morning, Leon. Well, there's a lot of excitement here at this liquor store in San Jose. In fact, so much so, Alex Wang, the owner you just heard from, he's gone home to catch up on some sleep because for hours now, many hopeful people have been coming by hoping they had the winning ticket, coming by this store to see if they did.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was shaking, man. My buddy just called me coming down the street here, John, and told me that Alex's store won, I was just started shaking, like no; oh, no!

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I had already checked my numbers, but we did hear that it came from here, and we knew that we got our tickets from here, so we were excited for him.

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BERNARD: Dozens of losing ticket holders have come by to congratulate store owner Alex Wang. He gets about $705,000 for selling the winning lotto ticket. Wang says he'd like to buy his wife a new car with that money. State lottery mangers have also stopping in to congratulate Wang. They're thrilled at how things have turned out here in California.

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ISIDRO RAMIREZ, CALIFORNIA LOTTERY: We've got a big jackpot that broke the record, $141 million. We've got the biggest single winning ticket in California, one ticket, and then we've got the largest incentive being paid to a retailer that helps us sell lottery tickets. So, it's a lot of first, first, firsts and a lot win, win, wins. (END VIDEO CLIP)

BERNARD: And California public school students are also big winners. Lottery managers tell us that due to this jackpot, California public schools will get more than $80 million. Now, the winner has six months to come forward and claim their prize.

For CNN in San Jose, I'm Lisa Bernard. Back to you.

HARRIS: That's incredible. How -- Lisa, any idea how long the crowds were hanging around outside that liquor store all day yesterday and this morning?

BERNARD: Well, they were here for hours. They would come by with their tickets, see the print-out from the machine and hope their numbers matched and of course, when they didn't, they'd sort of look around and see if the person among them might hold the lucky winning ticket.

HARRIS: All right, thanks much for that update. Lisa Bernard of our affiliate KNTV. We appreciate that.

And just in case you think you might be holding the winning ticket, numbers are: 3, 22, 43, 44, 45 and the meganumber is 8. Good luck.

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