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CNN Saturday Morning News
People Line up Outside Stores for Powerball Tickets
Aired August 25, 2001 - 08:12 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.
JEFF FLOCK, CNN ANCHOR: It is the hour of Powerball, with more than $280 million going to the winner, if there is one. I'm told that CNN's Kathleen Koch is somewhere out there with the folks that hope to be millionaires. Kathleen, what's the latest?
KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jeff, I'm out here with the faithful. And Jeff and Kyra, if you thought that Powerball fever would turn to Powerball fatigue, think again. At this Shell station in Southeast Washington, people have been lined up outside since 5:30 this morning. When the doors opened here about 10 minutes ago, there were more than 100 people in line.
This is one of the busiest lottery retailers in the Washington D.C. area, not only because the Maryland border is just down the street there, but also because they have a very busy four lottery machines, Powerball machines, cranking away inside.
Now, let's talk to some of the hopefuls here in line that bet that they're going to be the ones to win that $280 million.
Hello, would you tell us how many tickets you're buying today?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Ten.
KOCH: Now, how much have you spent over the last week?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, this is my first time playing.
KOCH: Do you think you're going to be the big winner?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I hope so.
KOCH: All right, thank you.
And how many tickets are you buying?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ten.
KOCH: Do you know the odds are one in 80 million of you winning, and you're still playing?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes ma'am.
KOCH: Now, tell me, what would you do with the money? Obviously, you're here thinking you're going to be the lucky winner.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, somebody's got to win. I'm not sure what I'd do with the money. I'd probably buy a house, give a lot of it away, mostly to charity.
KOCH: And, you know most people only buy between one and five tickets. The last lottery winners earlier this spring bought just three, and they were still big winners. How many are you buying?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm buying $20 worth.
KOCH: And you think that's going to be enough?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, you know, that's all I'm going to spend on it for right now, yeah.
KOCH: That's the word from here in Southeast Washington. Now, Jeff and Kyra, they're telling us -- lottery officials say even if you hear that someone else is the big winner and that isn't you tonight, don't tear up those lottery tickets. You could still have a winner because, you know, if you match just five numbers you can win $100,000 and 42 people did that Wednesday night. Back to you.
FLOCK: Kathleen, I have spent a lot of my time out at those places and I never failed to be amazed by the positive nature of all the folks there.
KOCH: Eternal optimists.
FLOCK: Well, wherever you are, you can check your tickets tonight on CNN. We will have live coverage of the drawing at 11:00 PM Eastern, 8:00 on the West Coast.
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