Anaheim Woman Wins $100,000 : Top Prizes Elude 30 Spinners in State Lottery

None of the four Orange County residents who spun California’s lottery wheel of fortune hit the million-dollar mark Monday.

But with Christmas just 14 shopping days away, they were content with their winnings just the same.

Laura J. Evans, a 26-year-old executive assistant from Anaheim, won $100,000 in the eighth and last edition of “California Jackpot,” the state’s first scratch-off lottery contest. Carol A. Grabuskie, a 46-year-old striking meat cutter from La Habra, won $10,000. None of the 10 finalists won the top prize of $2 million.

In the first spin for the lottery’s Game Two, called “Sky’s the Limit” for a maximum of $3 million, Santa Ana Valley High School art instructor and football coach Chuck J. Deckard, 36, and Anaheim homemaker Barbara T. Martin, 28, each won $10,000. None of Game Two’s first 20 finalists won the $3 million or $1 million top prizes.

Grabuskie, who has been out on strike with the meat cutters’ union since Nov. 6, said she would have to “sit down” with her husband, a record company executive, and four children “to decide what we want.”

Among purchasers of the 400 million lottery tickets sold in the first game, 140 people who won $100 in the instant contest were selected for the televised spin-offs. Another 20 contestants spun the wheel Monday in the first round of the second game.

During the first eight weeks of the telecasts, 160 contestants won a total of more than $27 million, with 11 winning $2 million, 27 winning $100,000, 49 winning $50,000 and 63 winning $10,000.

Lottery officials said 300 million tickets were printed for the lottery’s second game, which began last month, and 220 million of them already have been sold.