LUCKY 13; CO-WORKERS WIN $295.7 MILLION.

Byline: Pam Belluck The New York Times

Long before Thursday, they called themselves ``The Lucky 13.''

Long before the country was seized by a fevered frenzy of lottery mania, jamming traffic in towns across the country as rabid ticket-buyers waited endlessly in line for a fantastically slim chance at instant riches, they were ponying up a few dollars a week, figuring that someday their luck would change.

Thirteen men of very modest means, assembly-line workers at an industrial parts factory here just north of Columbus, got the winning ticket for the biggest American lottery ever, the $295.7 million Powerball lottery jackpot.

``It took a long time to believe we actually hit it,'' said John Jarrell, one of the 13, a stocky man with a droopy mustache. He and his wife, Sandy, stood outside their northeast Columbus home wearing black motorcycle T-shirts and jeans and said one of the first things they would buy would be a ``hers'' Harley-Davidson to match the one Jarrell already has.

``You go from totally excited to scared to death,'' said Jarrell, 34. ``We're really getting nervous and scared what we're going to do with all this money.''

Jarrell was the first of the 13 to publicly identify himself Thursday. The rest of the men had decided to remain anonymous as long as they could, said a lawyer, Laurence Sturtz, who spoke on behalf of the men.

``They're trying to figure out what they're going to do with the rest of their lives,'' Sturtz said. ``These are guys who decided every night whether they were going to work overtime or go home and be with their family. They don't have to do that anymore.''

The 13 men, ranging in age from 20 to 50, all work in the machine shop at Automation Tooling Systems in Westerville. They christened themselves ``The Lucky 13'' years ago when they began playing the Ohio lottery every week, Sturtz said. At various times, he said, other workers had wanted to join, but the baker's dozen kept their club exclusive.

This week, the men each kicked in $10 to buy 130 tickets for Wednesday's drawing, the only time they had played Powerball besides May's big jackpot. One of them drove 100 miles to a Speedway gas station and convenience store in Richmond, Ind., the nearest store selling them, and made copies of the tickets for each of his comrades.

The men opted to take their winnings in a lump-sum payment of about $161.5 million, said Indiana lottery officials, who still have to verify the winning ticket. Each expects to collect about $12.42 million before taxes.

Sandy Jarrell saw the winning numbers - 8, 39, 43, 45, 49, and Powerball 13 - on television Wednesday night and by midnight, there was a party at the Jarrell's modest house. Thursday, the couple was already buying toys for their three children, ages 15, 10 and 8.

But ``The Lucky 13'' went to work Thursday, at least to break the news. Sturtz met with them there Thursday morning to give them some advice.

``First we took the ticket to a safety deposit box,'' he said. ``Then we talked about getting a financial adviser, getting legal advice, writing trusts, and finally how to say no to people and how to hang up the phone.''

The record Powerball lottery stirred everyday people into pandemonium over a prize that everyone knew was virtually impossible to win, with 80.1 million possible combinations for the jackpot.

In New York and New Jersey, scalpers were selling Powerball tickets for twice the price and finding desperate buyers. Stores along state lines in 20 other states and the District of Columbia had lines of salivating ticket buyers waiting for hours.

Upscale Greenwich, Conn., the first interstate exit and the first train station over the state line from New York, was so flooded with fortune seekers that Connecticut Lottery Corp. agreed to suspend ticket sales there if nobody won the lottery this round.

Connecticut sold more tickets than any other state - $32 million worth - but cash registers at all 45,000 outlets selling Powerball tickets were whirring overtime. All told, 210.8 million $1 tickets were sold for this drawing, said Charles Strutt, executive director of the Multi-State Lottery Association, which runs Powerball.

The blizzard of ticket-buying was so furious that even the co-creator of Powerball was taken aback. This was not exactly what he had intended, said Edward Stanek, the commissioner of the Iowa lottery.

``It is inappropriate for someone to wait in line for three to eight hours for a game,'' Stanek said. ``It is inappropriate for someone coming home from work to get caught in a traffic jam trying to exit the freeway or for someone to suffer heat exhaustion waiting to buy a $1 ticket. You would expect those kinds of lines for a Rolling Stones concert or a sporting event, but the lottery is supposed to be more consumer-friendly.''

The previous record jackpot for a single winner, $195 million, was won just two months ago by a retired electrician, Frank Capaci, from Streamwood, Ill., a working-class suburb of Chicago.

``No one expected to have another jackpot like this so soon,'' Strutt said.

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Photo

Photo: Assembly-line workers at Automation Tooling Systems in Westerville, Ohio, celebrate Thursday morning.

Gary Gardiner/Associated Press