OUT OF LUCK? : MIX-UP LEAVES LOTTO WINNER IN DOUBT.

Byline: Mary Schubert Daily News Staff Writer

Super Lotto players, take note: when your lucky numbers come in, don't let that jackpot-winning ticket out of your sight.

And by all means, walk the winning ticket into a lottery office by hand rather than putting it in the mail.

That's what California Lottery officials suspect the winner of a recent $4.6 million jackpot may have done - and they're busy poking through the Sacramento mail room in search of the ticket.

``All we know is that the apparent winner apparently mailed his winning ticket in,'' said lottery spokeswoman Norma Minas. ``Until the time that we either receive that ticket in the mail, or someone walks into a district office, we can't verify a winner.''

Inderjit Kaur, manager of a 7-Eleven in Canyon Country, sold the winning ticket - one of three sold in the $14 million Sept. 4 drawing with the numbers 22, 25, 32, 39, 42 and 45.

She said the ticket was bought by one of her regular customers - a dark-haired, middle-age man who typically comes in around lunchtime to buy coffee or a soda.

Last Thursday, the customer walked in with a grin.

``He (brought) the winning ticket and I put it in my computer,'' Kaur said. She dialed a toll-free lottery number, spoke to the operator and then handed the phone to her customer.

After the man hung up the phone, Kaur said, ``he asked for a claim form. I gave him a claim form and stamped it with my store stamp.''

Minas said lottery officials are investigating the mix-up, but believe the ticket is somewhere in the mail based on Kaur's information.

``I don't know if there was miscommunication between the telephone operator and the consumer,'' Minas said, ``or (whether) the operator knew it was a jackpot winner.''

Lottery officials advise jackpot winners to make photocopies of their tickets and always sign the back of them.

``If you have a ticket that's worth millions of dollars, you certainly want to take it into a district office,'' Minas said.

In the 11-year history of the California Lottery, she said, there have been eight unclaimed Super Lotto prizes, amounting to $56.2 million that eventually was funneled to public schools.

The largest unclaimed prize was $16.4 million, from a ticket bought in Garden Grove in 1990, Minas said.

``Most recently, there was a $15 million (winning ticket) in Pearblossom,'' she said, noting that the state-mandated, 180-day period to claim prizes elapsed this summer with a winner never coming forward.

``That town turned themselves upside down and inside out looking for that ticket,'' Minas said. ``Nobody could come up with it.''