When Lightning Strikes

Two weeks after Betty Gloss won $6 million in the Illinois lottery last October, a police officer carrying a birth certificate visited the home of the winner and her husband Arthur. “I’m your son,” the officer said to Mr. Gloss. “I’m Arthur Gloss Jr.” As a bonus to the Glosses’ monetary bonanza, the publicity from winning the lottery reunited Arthur Gloss with his three sons from a previous marriage, whom he had not seen since his divorce in 1949. The happy reunion is one of many unexpected tales, some joyful and others dispiriting, from among the 951 people who have become millionaires in state lotteries.

Like Betty Gloss, Ken Natzke won $6 million ($300,000 a year for 20 years) in the Illinois lottery last October. A onetime carpet cleaner, Natzke is now co-owner of a handyman service and part owner of a production company that books entertainment acts like Elvis Presley Impersonator Rick Saucedo. He receives daily phone calls from brokers and investors as well as from desperate, unknown individuals begging for money. His life-style now includes a 1984 Cadillac Eldorado and a new ten-room house. He fends off a persistent woman who wants him to marry her daughter. He also continues to play the lottery, believing that lightning can strike twice. Insists Natzke: “I am going to win again.”

Until last year, Harold Costello lived in a two-room shack he had built on 15 acres of wooded land he owns in East Lebanon, Me. A former carpenter making do on $400 a month in disability benefits, he went without electricity and plumbing for four years. But last month Costello’s lucky numbers were drawn in the Massachusetts Megabucks lottery. His prize: more than $2 million in annual installments of $113,000 for 20 years. Costello’s first purchases were two “double-wide” mobile homes (cost: $30,000 each furnished), one to replace the Maine shack and the other to be used as a vacation trailer in Leesburg, Fla. For his “lady friend,” he bought a new Buick.

Robert Cunningham, a Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., police detective, had been a regular at Sal’s Pizzeria in nearby Yonkers for eight years when, one night in March, he decided to offer Waitress Phyllis Penzo an unusual tip. “Hey, Phyl, I’ve got a lottery ticket in my pocket,” he said. “Why don’t we split the card?” Penzo took her chances, helped choose the numbers and ended up with a very nice tip in deed: $3 million. The newly made millionaires have modest plans for their winnings. While they both have dreams they want to fulfill (a trip to Hawaii for Penzo and a boat for Cunningham), a more typical desire is Cunningham’s to add on to the house he already lives in.

Not every winner’s story is a happy one. Ken Proxmire was a tool grinder when, in 1977, he won $1 million on a 50¢ Michigan lottery ticket. After the winnings started coming in ($50,000 a year for 20 years), Proxmire moved to Fresno, Calif, where he eventually opened three sporting-goods stores specializing in pool tables. He did a brisk business until 1980, when interest rates took a sharp rise and luxury items like pool tables became less popular. His business failed and, $100,000 in debt, he filed for bankruptcy. During this financial crisis his wife left him. “I just went too fast at a real bad time,” he laments. Out of his yearly winnings, $20,500 goes to bankruptcy settlements and $10,500 to tax payments. Says he: “When you’re used to living on 50 grand a year, $19,000 just doesn’t cut it.” Proxmire’s wife, however, has returned to him. When asked if he wishes he had never drawn the lucky ticket, the unemployed “millionaire” replies: “Hell, no.”