Lotto

William F. Rochford easily wins this year's award as the biggest Lotto loser of them all. For displeasing the governor by speaking too candidly, Mr. Rochford was fired last week as director of the State Lottery Agency. Too many "missteps and miscues" had occurred, according to the governor's office.What triggered the firing was Mr. Rochford's audacity in telling a reporter why lottery proceeds are now expected to come in a whopping $106 million below budgetary estimates. The reason, according to the lottery director, is that Gov. William Donald Schaefer had insisted that revenue projections for the new Keno game be puffed up to help ease his budget problems.

Tens of thousands of Marylanders are dreaming of a belated Christmas present -- and a very Happy New Year.The stuff of which their dreams are made? Tickets to tomorrow's $21 million Maryland Lotto jackpot, which matches the largest payoff in state lottery history.Regular players are increasing the number of tickets they buy to improve their chances of winning and occasional players are moving to get in on the action.Lottery outlets braced yesterday for a repeat of last week's Christmas Eve and Christmas Day rush, when customers lined up for bread, milk -- and Lotto tickets.

The West Virginia courts played Santa Claus last week for Deborah L. Rogers, making this the first Christmas in years that she won't need a bank loan to buy gifts for her three teen-agers.Before the courts intervened, all she had was a drawerful of court orders for $300-a-month child support from her ex-husband, Michael E. Rogers of Edgemere, who hit the Maryland lottery for $3 million in April.A West Virginia family law master last week increased the monthly child support payment to $3,246 and ordered Mr. Rogers to pay $5,000 of nearly $19,000 in back payments by Dec. 18. The decision came after a Monongalia County Circuit Court judge on Dec. 3 found him in contempt of court.

What would you do if you won the big one?It's the American dinner-party question that won't die. Maybe because its answer usually involves an element of delicious bravado. "I'd walk right into my boss's office and . . ."accountants on call, a Saddle Brook, N.J., firm specializing in placing temporary accounting and bookkeeping personnel around the country, wondered if people really would quit their jobs. So they commissioned the Gallup Organization to conduct a survey as part of aoc's "Profiles of the American Worker" series.

After the winning Lotto numbers were selected Saturday night, Ottoway Harrison Sr. had a lot of celebrating to do -- more than $2.6 million worth.Mr. Harrison, 60, of the 4800 block of Hamilton Ave. in Baltimore, beat odds of about 7 million to 1 to become the sole jackpot winner.The winning numbers were 02-06-11-31-39-42, and the ticket was purchased at F&M Enterprises Inc. on North Point Boulevard in southeastern Baltimore County.Mr. Harrison, who owns Ottoway Harrison Asphalt, will receive an initial payment of $130,418 and 19 annual payments of $134,000, before taxes.

HILLSDALE, Mich. -- People in this rural southern Michigan town are asking themselves an $18-million question: Where is that winning Michigan Lotto ticket?Residents have scoured every place they can think of, from pockets of old clothes to dresser drawers and boxes. Still, no one has come up with the ticket bearing the winning numbers: 9-13-17-18-30-38.And with just two days left to claim the lottery drawing from July 1, 1992, most people have concluded that the ticket must have left town with the person who bought it.When word came last month that the only winning ticket for the $18 million jackpot had been sold at a local 7-Eleven, it created a wave of excitement in Hillsdale, a town of about 8,000 people near the Michigan-Ohio border.

Wanna Limpawuchara says she only plays "the biggies." So when the Lotto jackpot climbed toward $9 million this week, the Thai-born nurse wanted a piece of it.What she and her husband, Bundhit, 46, a medical technologist, got yesterday was the whole nine yards, er, million, as the only winners of Wednesday's drawing.It took a little doing and a lot of luck, though, said Mrs. Limpawuchara, 45. The lottery machine at an Ellicott City pizza shop was broken when she tried to buy tickets Tuesday.

Maryland's Lotto game has made millionaires out of 490 winners since the game began in 1983, but yesterday apparently was the first time any of them turned over part of their initial checks to help Bea Gaddy feed the hungry in East Baltimore.Michael and Carolyn Rogers of Sparrows Point won $3 million in the April 10 Lotto drawing. Surrounded by friends and family yesterday at the High's convenience store on Sparrows Point Road where they bought the winning ticket, they gave Ms. Gaddy $5,000.

Persistence paid off for a Baltimore County couple who have been buying Lotto tickets twice a week, every week for the last two years.After spending the Easter weekend out of town, Michael and Carolyn Rogers of Edgemere discovered Monday evening that they had won $3 million in the Saturday lottery drawing."

Persistence paid off for a Baltimore County couple who have been buying Lotto tickets twice a week, every week for the last two years.After spending the Easter weekend out of town, Michael and Carolyn Rogers of Edgemere discovered Monday evening that they had won $3 million in the Saturday lottery drawing."