Henry Brown has been playing the lottery for decades, and he’s got a system, picking his numbers based on the birthdays of his late wife and his mother — but never taking the game too seriously.
That’s true even now, with the Powerball jackpot surpassing $1 billion for Wednesday’s drawing.
“If I win, I win,” Brown said as he purchased a Powerball ticket Tuesday at Davis Pantry, a convenience store in Evanston. “If I lose, I lose. I lose no sleep.”
The $2 ticket that Brown purchased is just one of the 22.4 million tickets that have been sold in Illinois through Tuesday afternoon for the current jackpot, according to state lottery officials.
Wednesday’s $1 billion Powerball jackpot would be the seventh highest in U.S. history and the third largest for Powerball. If a sole player picks all five numbers plus the Powerball number drawn, they have the option of taking the $1 billion prize in yearly increments paid out over 29 years or a $516.8 million one-time lump sum before taxes.
Alan Chalmers and Brian Bonner, who were playing nearby at a 7-Eleven on Emerson Street in Evanston, also use a birthday system to pick numbers.
Chalmers, 57, said he used his birthday as well as his daughter’s birthday to help select his numbers. With his birthday approaching next week, he said he’s playing as a gift to himself.
“I’m just consistent, I don’t really go overboard, but you must be consistent,” said Chalmers, who has played the lottery for the last 30 years. “That’s the secret.”
Bonner, the youngest of five brothers, said he uses his siblings’ and mother’s birthdays to play the lottery. Bonner, 38, said he only plays the lottery when the cash prize is more than $100 million, and he’s feeling lucky this time around. The first thing the Evanston resident would buy is a bigger house and a boat to go along with it.
“I like the water,” said Bonner, who’s been playing the lottery for 20 years.
7-Eleven cashier Pratham Mohanty said the store has been very busy over the last two days. Mohanty, 18, said he’s working at the store as a summer job, and this is the first time he’s worked when there’s been a hefty jackpot.
“People have been buying a lot of tickets,” Mohanty said.
At a 7-Eleven in Rogers Park, Bob Wysocki said he doesn’t really have a system when it comes to playing and usually opts for quick pick tickets, in which numbers are randomly generated.
Like Bonner, Wysocki said he only plays the lottery when there’s a big jackpot. He said he tries to limit how much he plays after growing up and watching his dad play every week for years.
“In all that time, he spent more money than he won,” Wysocki said of his father.
Also in Rogers Park, three workers at the Asian Station restaurant showed there’s strength in numbers. Beni Staats said she walked next door to Morse Green Arch Food Mart to buy three lottery tickets for her and her two co-workers, Mae Supsomboon and Manasanun Jiradateprapai, with plans to split the proceeds if they win.
Staats said she rarely buys tickets and only got them because the jackpot is so high. A mother of two daughters, ages 5 and 7, Staats said she would use the money to pay for her children’s college education.
“That’s the first thing that comes to mind,” Staats said.
Next door at Morse Green Arch Food Mart, cashier Rahmathullah Syed said more people have been coming into the store in the last two days and playing with special numbers, with most using the birthdays of loved ones.
Syed, 36, said that although he doesn’t play the lottery and doesn’t plan to purchase a Powerball ticket, if he won the money, he would donate it to the homeless people who gather outside the store to help them get a better life.
“They deserve it, actually,” Syed said.
Powerball tickets will be on sale until 9 p.m. Wednesday, and the drawing will be at 10 p.m.
Contributing: Associated Press
