DARING PAYS OFF FOR NEWLYWEDS.

Byline: Laurence Darmiento Daily News Staff Writer

Ten thousand dollars doesn't even approach a Super Lotto jackpot, but when you're just married and sitting on the floor to watch TV it'll do just fine.

Just ask Holly and Scot Thompson. Their good fortune transformed what was a a $325 act of philanthropy into winnings that might finally get them a new sofa.

The Valencia couple, who married in June, attended the annual fund-raiser for the Santa Clarita Child & Family Development Center earlier this month. Like many such events, there was a raffle and a grand prize.

But forget about the trip to Disneyland. This prize was $10,000 in cash. Well, actually, a check cut on the spot.

Raffle tickets were selling at $100 apiece, and Holly, a saleswoman for a payroll processing company, didn't think she and her husband could afford one. But Scot, she discovered, is a bit of a gambler.

``He kept asking me, `Should we get a ticket? Should we get a ticket?' I knew if I turned around and said no, he wouldn't. So I just ignored him, and he got one.''

The July 14 fund-raiser at The Facey Atrium was a ``reverse auction'' in which the last ticket drawn is the winner. As it turned out the couple's ticket lasted 160 drawings, before it was unceremoniously snatched off a large wall where all the raffle entries had been pinned up.

Holly thought that was it. One hundred dollars had been turned over to a good cause - but her husband, she found out, was just getting started.

By 5:15 p.m. 30 raffle tickets were still up on the wall, but there were a few left unsold. The catch was, if you bought one at that point, it would cost you $225 and that was not something the newlyweds could afford.

Or so Holly thought.

``I did the math in my head and figured out that at that price it was good odds,'' said Scot, an engineer for a local high-tech company. ``I ran over there and got the last ticket available.''

He then told his wife. She was excited, but didn't really like what she had heard.

``I thought. There goes the china. That's all the crystal we have could have bought. There goes the sofa,'' she recounted. ``My husband's a risk-taker. I kept telling people, `He's a maniac.' ''

One by one the tickets came off the wall, but the couple's No. 282 remained. Toward the end the Thompsons thought they heard their number being pulled, but it was a No. 082 instead.

At the end, only No. 282 remained. Both said it felt like a dream.

``It was surrealistic. I'd never won anything like that before,'' said Scot. ``OK. We've got $10,000. What do we do with it?''

In the week since they won, the couple has figured that out, paying off wedding bills and retiring some credit card debt. And what about that sofa?

``We'll get a good sofa later,'' said Holly, with a chuckle.

CAPTION(S):

Photo

Photo: (Color only in SAC edition) Holly and Scot Thompson, who were married just last month, took a chance and won $10,000 at a Santa Clarita charity raffle.

John Lazar/Special to the Daily News