Quiet Big Spin® Contestant Wins for Son, Pulls Heartstrings

Business Wire,  June 21, 2008  

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SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Soft-spoken and extraordinarily polite, Mike Wallace from Fresno would have welcomed the minimum prize any Big Spin contestant receives, but his story and his luck gave him much more on this week's California Lottery Big Spin show. The show aired statewide Saturday, June 21, 2008. The grand total won this week was $142,500!

Wallace has a son, Alex, who is 10 years old. Alex has had two organ transplants and one of those, a kidney, has failed. So Alex is on dialysis, waiting for medical approval before another transplant can be considered. Wallace had won his way to the game show's Aces High where he faced nine other contestants. Somehow, luck was with him. So were onlookers who had learned his story. Wallace then won his way to the big wheel where host Pat Finn asked what he hoped for. He replied, "Making my little boy's dreams come true." With that the proud father gave the wheel a spin and, in time, it stopped on $40,000. "This is wonderful," Wallace said as he, his wife and daughter, who were in the audience, knew the prize would pay for a trip to Disneyworld when Alex can travel.

Other big winners of the day included Jim Thorpe of Spring Valley and Bob Sharp of Monrovia. Both played the Fantasy 5 Dream Machine. Thorpe won $60,000 and plans a train ride with his wife to the Mississippi River. They will stop and eat at barbeque restaurants. Sharp won $20,000 and received loud congratulations from a group in the studio audience that Sharp called, "The best friends a guy could have."

                  <                   <  Winners


NAME              <                   <  CITY

AMOUNT
Jim Thorpe        <                   <  Spring

$60,000
Mike Wallace      <                   <  Fresno

$40,000
Bob Sharp         <                   <  Monrovia

$20,000
Cruz Romero       <                   <  Los Ang-

$5,000
Sandra Greene     <                   <  Los Ang-

$4,000
Lilia Ayala       <                   <  Los Ang-

$2,500
Aleli Estacio     <                   <  Altadena

$2,000
Brian Jackson     <                   <  Cypress

$2,000
Mardin Amiri      <                   <  Los Gat-

$1,750
Randy Fox         <                   <  Yucaipa

$1,750
James Hunter      <                   <  Los Ang-

$1,750
Rafael Plasencia  <                   <  Rohnert

$1,750
                  <                   <  TOTAL

$142,500

For high resolution photos of Mike Wallace, Jim Thorpe or Bob Sharp please contact (916) 324-9639 or e-mail newsroom@calottery.com.

More than 95 cents of every Lottery dollar is returned to the community in the form of contributions to education, prizes and retail commissions. The California Lottery contributes at least 34 cents of every dollar that players spend on Lottery products to public education and returns more than 50 percent of sales to players in the form of prizes. Since its inception in 1985, the Lottery has contributed more than $20 billion to California schools out of total sales of nearly $55 billion. Retailers benefit too, earning $3.5 billion in compensation since 1985.

www.calottery.com

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