California Lottery: Two Time Winner Shares $85,000 With Father.

/ADVANCE FOR RELEASE AT 7:30 P.M. EDT SATURDAY, May 22/

/ADVANCE/ SACRAMENTO, Calif., May 22 /PRNewswire/ -- The new California Lottery's "Big Spin(R) 2000" show airs Saturday May 22, 1999 in twelve television markets statewide. Contestants on this week's show won a total of $227,500.

Fantasy 5 Dream Machine hosted two contestants on this week's show. Gloria Perez, a homemaker from Montebello was at the winner circle as proxy for her father three years ago, spun the wheel and won $60,000 for her father. Her father shared his prize money with Perez and now she plans to do the same for her father. Perez was this week's top winner with $85,000. Perez also plans to remodel her house and take a vacation to Hawaii.

"I love it!" retired high school teacher Divina Sherman from Eureka said after winning $65,000 playing Fantasy 5's Dream Machine. "'Almost' was my middle name," Sherman said, "I got 5 out of 6 before playing SuperLotto, and almost hit the big one, now I won $65,000 playing Fantasy 5." Sherman plans to use part of her prize to help her son through college, put a new roof on her house and put the rest in the bank.

This week's Spin-Spin-Spin contestant was Everardo Aguilar. Auguilar, a student from Indio, plans to buy a car with his $30,000 prize money and help his parents buy a house.

California Gold is Big Spin 2000's newly restyled way to get to the wheel. It begins with 10 contestants whose Big Spin Scratchers(R) tickets revealed three "TV Show" symbols on one ticket. When instructed, each player pushes down a "detonator" to reveal a prize ranging form $1,750 to $4,000. Two of those contestants will reveal gold nuggets and advance to the second round of play. Once there, they compete to see who can get the closest to 10 units of gold in their mining car without going over. The winner of this round goes to the Big Spin 2000 prize wheel, while the other contestant wins $5,000. Nattie Lett from Pasadena was this week's top California Gold winner spinning the largest prize wheel in the world for $25,000.

The California Lottery sells its products through a network of nearly 19,000 outlets statewide. The Lottery provides 52 percent of its revenues to players as prizes, 34 percent to public schools, and 14 percent for administrative expenses, which includes 6.8 percent for retailer commissions. Since 1985, the Lottery has raised more than $10 billion for public schools and has provided an annual average of approximately 38 percent of the Lottery's total revenues to schools. The California Lottery's contribution equals approximately 2 percent of the state's total education budget. "Big Spin(R) 2000" is the longest running Lottery game show in the country, airing continuously since 1985.

    NAME                           CITY                AMOUNT
    Gloria Perez                   Montebello          $ 85,000
    Divina Sherman                 Eureka              $ 65,000
    Everardo Aguilar               Indio               $ 30,000
    Nattie Lett                    Pasadena            $ 25,000
    Other California Gold Winners                      $ 22,500

                                             TOTAL     $227,500

Note: Additional information about the California Lottery may be found on their Web site at ( http://www.calottery.com ).