Lottery

Re "For lottery winners, it's hard to hide," Dec. 16 Dang! California releases the names of jackpot winners. If that's what one has to put up with, it just might be better to pass on the whole thing. Still, it's nice that the privacy most of us have right now is ultimately so important. Richie Locasso Huntington Beach ALSO: Letters: Deaf reality Letters: God and gays Letters: Free healthcare is expensive

There are a lot of things you can buy with $192 million in Arizona, but anonymity isn't one of them. As the Times reported Monday , Matthew Good of Fountain Hills, Ariz., purchased one of the two  winning Powerball tickets for the record-setting $587.5-million jackpot two weeks ago. Though Good wanted to remain anonymous, he bought his ticket in his home state, so he didn't have a choice. Because lotteries like Powerball, which is played in 43 (including California starting in April)

DEARBORN, Mo. - Powerball fever carried an edge of anticipation Thursday as Missouri lottery officials said they had verified one of two tickets that matched all six numbers to split a $588-million jackpot, but that ticket holder - and another in Arizona - remained a mystery. The winning tickets were sold at a convenience store in suburban Phoenix and a gas station in Dearborn, just off Interstate 29. Missouri lottery officials said they had verified a ticket presented to them that included all winning numbers - 5, 16, 22, 23, 29 and the Powerball, 6 - and scheduled a news conference for 11 a.m. Friday.

Californians griping about not getting their shot at the recent $587.5-million Powerball jackpot won't have much longer to complain. The California Lottery Commission voted unanimously Thursday to bring the popular multi-state game to California. Tickets, which cost $2 each, will go on sale at licensed lottery merchants in April. The vote comes a day after the game attracted wide attention for its largest jackpot ever. "That would have been worth an investment of my dollar, but I didn't want to go all the way to Arizona to buy a ticket," said Alfred Reeves, 51, as he stood by his car outside Country Donut Shop in Long Beach.

I was treading water at an ad agency in Toronto when I spied an unusual ad in the morning paper. It was an announcement from the U.S. government recruiting able-bodied Canadians to apply for a lottery to enter the U.S. legally with a resident alien, or green, card. I took the bait and signed up. Fast-forward two years. I arrived home from work on a miserable winter afternoon and found a large envelope in my mailbox. The U.S. Department of Immigration was inviting me to live in the United States!

Chef Ludo Lefebvre's LudoBites is back, for its 10th run -- a "best of" celebration of the popular pop-up dinner series. LudoBites.TEN is scheduled to take place at Gram & Papas downtown on weekdays Dec. 4-21.  A reservations lottery runs from 11 a.m. on Nov. 28 to 11 a.m. on Nov. 29 via UrbanSpoon. You can select desired dates and seatings (the early seating is from 6 p.m. to 6:45 p.m.; the late seating is from 7:45 p.m. to 9 p.m.), or all days and "no preference" for times if your calendar is open.

New Jersey residents left homeless from Superstorm Sandy will be put into a lottery to receive housing that could be available as early as next week on a closed military base, Gov. Chris Christie said. Utilities need to be hooked up for 400 to 600 units at Ft. Monmouth, a former communications base in Oceanport, N.J., and then displaced residents could start moving in, the governor said at a Tuesday news conference. Thousands of residents across the Northeast have been displaced from the hurricane, with New Jersey and New York suffering the worst damage.

BANGKOK, Thailand - Siripong Khwanthong sidles up to a lottery seller along a crowded street near Bangkok's Patpong pleasure district, studies the selection and settles on a ticket ending in 37. "The number just came to me," he says. "Maybe I'll be lucky tomorrow. " If the government has its way, Siripong soon will be buying lottery tickets from machines. And that's fine with him: Not only would it be more convenient, but it also could save money by cutting out the surcharge that street vendors command selling "lucky" numbers, which can add as much as 50% to the $2.70 ticket price.

For years, Julie Cervera has had a habit of buying lottery tickets and then never checking whether they were winners. By her estimate, she has 200 or so unchecked tickets lying around. Cervera's strange ways nearly cost her a life-changing fortune, when a ticket worth $23 million sat forgotten in the glove compartment of her car for nearly 6 months. Luckily for Cervera, a 69-year-old grandmother who has been struggling to feed her family and pay the bills, lottery officials went out of their way to search for the owner of the unclaimed jackpot before the money was forfeited.

A Super Lotto Plus ticket worth $23 million was gathering dust in a glove compartment for more than five months before the lucky winner realized it was there. She can thank the California Lottery for an assist. With only 25 days left to claim a life-changing prize, the winner, who has not been identified, realized her mother had the ticket when she saw her own likeness on the front page of the Antelope Valley Press. Lotto officials had released an image taken from surveillance video at Michael's Market & Liquor in Palmdale, where the winning ticket was purchased.