LOTTO FEVER DIAGNOSED JACKPOT TOPS $35 MILLION, COULD DOUBLE BY SATURDAY.

Byline: Jason Kandel Staff Writer

Feeling lucky?

Lotto sales outlets across the Southland are bracing for the crush of customers drooling over a $35 million jackpot - the largest this year - to be drawn tonight.

``This is a nice-sized jackpot for someone to win,'' said Norma Minas, a California Lottery spokeswoman. ``With the Chinese New Year, this will be a very lucky year for a lot of our consumers.''

The lotto numbers will be drawn at approximately 8 tonight. Retailers can sell tickets until a few minutes before the draw. If no tickets match those drawn, the jackpot could double before Saturday's drawing.

Two stores in the San Fernando Valley have sold two winning Super Lotto tickets each in the past decade: a 7-Eleven store in Sepulveda and the Mercado Del Valle in Pacoima.

The 7-Eleven at 15601 Nordhoff St. sold one ticket that won $3.2 million in 1988 and another that won $4.5 million in 1991. The other lucky San Fernando retailer, Mercado Del Valle at 11673 Glenoaks Blvd., sold a winning $4.1 million ticket in 1988, and a $4 million ticket last year.

Mercado co-owner Jose Herrera, 46, is getting ready for throngs of people with lotto fever.

``We'll probably sell over $3,000 in tickets,'' said Herrera, who already has bought 20 tickets himself, and who claimed $50,000 in a 1986 lotto event. ``Tomorrow is going to be busy. We'll have two cashiers instead of one.''

If the winner chooses a cash option, he or she will get roughly half the final jackpot, once taxes have been withheld. The 26-year payout option gets the winner an $875,000 first payment, and then the annual check could increase to about $1.7 million in the final year, Minas said.