Lotto Fever Runs High

Whether it’s the third roll-over of the jackpot or the offer of a prize exceeding $20 million, there’s a magical moment at which simple state lottery playing turns into Lotto Fever.

With tonight’s jackpot at more than $50 million, the fever has been running high all week. And even the rich are trying to get richer.

Lotto Fever occurs because many rational, analytical people are conflicted about whether to buy tickets or not, says Dr. Edward Stainbrook, USC medical school professor emeritus of psychiatry. Ordinarily, they look at the odds and can inhibit their impulses. But when no one wins thrice in a row, and the jackpot gets huge, players can’t repress their impulses and so they buy, buy, buy.

Does he buy Lotto tickets? “No. I don’t believe I could triumph over the laws of probability,” Stainbrook says. “But, on the other hand, someone has to win.”

On the affluent Westside, at Beverly Hills Pipe and Tobacco Co., there are plenty of wealthy players who hope to pile up even greater fortunes. When Lotto Fever strikes, owner Charlie Kornguth says, there are “Rolls-Royces and limousines pulling up to my store for Lotto tickets.” Any jackpot exceeding $15 million or $20 million brings “the hired help,” bearing envelopes with large sums of money, while bosses sit anonymously in the car.

He said he sells “lots of $4,000 and $5,000 Quick Picks.” The most he’s sold? So far, $11,000 worth of tickets to “a man who won zero, zilch, nothing.”

Florence Levi, of Liquor Castle in Beverly Hills, says the fever hit her customers so bad she will probably sell 100,000 tickets this week, compared with the 15,000 or 20,000 norm.