Jackpot fever

Jamestown grocers said the lines at the service counters were a lot longer this weekend with record jackpot lottery sales.

With no winner in Friday's Mega Millions, the jackpot is now at $1.6 billion for Tuesday's drawing. There was also no winner in Saturday's Powerball drawing, bring the jackpot up to $620 million.

The North Dakota Lotto America is at $10.1 million, as of Sunday.

"It's really ridiculous," said Cheryl Leean, customer service assistant at Hugo's Family Marketplace.

Lottery ticket sales typically increase on weekends, she said. But when there are high jackpots like this weekend the sales jump much higher, she said. People who don't usually buy lottery tickets will come in and buy one for a high jackpot, and the people who regularly play the lottery will buy several more tickets than usual, she said.

"It's been kind of crazy," Leean said. "One guy bought $90 worth today (Saturday) between the Powerball and the Mega Millions."

People who usually let the computer pick their numbers will often pick their own numbers with the excitement of a big jackpot, she said.

"It's a once-in-a-lifetime number now," said a customer at Hugo's Family Marketplace, who did not want to be identified for the story.

As a regular lottery player, he said he buys more tickets when the jackpot is higher. For this Mega Millions jackpot he is picking his own numbers and also letting the computer select some of them.

Karen Kinzler, customer service manager at Hugo's Family Marketplace in Jamestown, said the ticket sales started growing on Tuesday, Oct. 16, with more than $900 in tickets sold. That was followed by over $800 on Wednesday, $2,600 on Friday and $1,200 on Saturday, she said.

Dan Wolff, the shift manager of Cash Wise Foods, said he waited in line behind four people to buy his lottery tickets on Friday. That isn't usually the case, he said.

"Our customer service staff said there were 10 people at a time coming in to get tickets on Friday," Wolff said.

A customer at Cash Wise Foods, who also did not want to be identified, said he occasionally buys a lottery ticket but would rather use money for that on other things. Somebody is going to win that $1.6 billion jackpot but he would rather see a lottery structured to give out several smaller prizes so that more people would win more often.

"I mean, that is a lot of money for one person, he said. "Sure, it's a dream, but they could fulfill a lot of dreams if they did smaller prizes, but they're going for the maximum profit."

Keith Schoen, a clerk at the Neighborhood Grocery, said there were a lot of Mega Millions lottery sales on Friday. He said he doesn't really understand all the excitement and thought it a little odd that more people come in when the jackpot reaches these record high numbers.

"It always amuses me that people from so many walks of life come in at $900 million and I guess $200 million was not enough for them," Schoen said. "I thought greed might be a factor but it just might be that people feel they have a better chance when it's up to $900 million."