Everyone wants to be a millionaire.
Ticket buyers flooded convenience stores Tuesday in hopes of buying the winning ticket before the night?s Mega Millions drawing, which had an estimated $265 million jackpot.
Lottery retailers said some customers were buying as many as 50 tickets at a time.
“Today has been a crazy day,” said Paul Kuppalli, owner of Manasa?s Cards and Gifts on Charles Street, “I guess they [customers] want to be millionaires.”
State lottery officials say jackpots in the triple digits always draw big crowds for retailers.
“We find that even people who are opposed to gambling sometimes play Mega Millions when the jackpot gets this high ? people come out of the woodwork,” Buddy Roogow, director of the state lottery agency.
Roogow estimated that the 12-state Mega Millions game will bring Maryland about $7 million in revenue.
But the game is not the state?s biggest revenue gainer. Roogow said Mega Millions accounts for only about 7 percent of the state?s total lottery sales ? the game Keno makes almost four times that.
And though the odds of winning Mega Millions are slim ? about 175 million to 1, people can?t seem to resist taking the chance.
“The average transaction is only $3, so people can indulge their fantasies,” Roogow said.
He also said the Mega Millions served as a “little economic boomlet for retailers,” especially those who are near the Delaware, Washington and Pennsylvania border.
In fiscal 2004, lottery sales reached about $1.4 billion dollars. About 33 percent of total revenue went back to the state and about 7 percent went to retailers, according to state officials. The rest of the profits went to operational expenses and prize money.
Most of the money that goes to the state is deposited into the General Fund.
Ticket buyers in Baltimore Tuesday were hopeful some of that money would soon be lining their pockets.
Baltimore resident Ron Kozz, who bought two tickets, said he knew exactly what he?d do with the prizemoney.
“I?d spend it ? on everyone,” he said “I?m too old to save it.”
