Black Store Manager Wins $87 Million For Herself And 12 Employees In Calif. Lottery

Jet, Nov 13, 2000

Over the last several years, Mary Champaine of Los Angeles lost her son to gun violence, her husband to cancer and her former job to Chapter 11 Bankruptcy.

Things have finally brightened up for the 53-year-old after she and 12 co-workers at a Starbucks coffee shop in the mid-city area of L.A. beat the 41 million-to-one odds and recently won the $87 million California lottery.

Champaine is the manager of the shop in which basketball legend Earvin "Magic" Johnson is an investor. She collected the money from the others, and even picked the numbers on 11 of the tickets. The two others were quick-picks by computer.

The winners are a microcosm of Los Angeles--Blacks, Latinos, Asians. The group was mostly female with one man participating. And since Champaine didn't specify on the tickets when she bought them whether or not she wanted to get one lump sum or have the payments spread out over 26 years, the jackpot is automatically spread out. The total amount each winner gets over 26 years will be $6.6 million--before taxes.

Champaine, who said she doesn't even buy lottery tickets unless they reach the mega-million levels, didn't even bother checking to see if any of her numbers had been chosen until a friend called and informed her that the winning tickets had been bought at a liquor store near her. "It's like a miracle!" she said.

She recalled for ABC-TV how her fellow winners figured she was teasing when she told them they'd won. "They kept saying, `Mary, stop teasing me.' And I said, `I'm not teasing.' I must have called a couple of them twice because they kept thinking I was teasing. And it was for real."

Leah Coley, one of the winners, told the L. A. Times: "Without her, this would not have happened." Champaine even put in money for employees who weren't working the day she dashed over to the liquor store to buy the tickets.

Champaine is aware that numerous lottery winners have squandered their money and ended up miserable. She told the L.A. Times that her first purchase will be a dining room set. "I'm not going to go out and buy a house or a car," she told the paper. "My little Corolla takes me back and forth just fine."

Although some have expressed desires to open their own businesses, she said she expects some to stay on for a while at the job that pays between $7.50 and $10.00 per hour.

Their first checks, due out in a few weeks, will be $167,307. The checks will increase until the final payment of $341,307 in the 26th year. Champaine told ABC that she made a "boo boo" by not asking for the lump sum payment. But for now, she told JET that she's still trying to believe what has happened to her.