Job Lot: The Lotto man

By GREG DIXON

Paul Ware and his wife, Laureen, have owned Sandringham's 3-in-1 Lotto Shop, which also offers drycleaning and photo development services, for seven years. The Mt Roskill 50-year-old earns $40-50,000 annually from the business.

Do you believe in luck?

Definitely, 100 per cent. We have people who are lucky and we have people who are unlucky.

We have one little old lady who wins a small prize every two to three weeks and we have other
people who haven't had a prize for three or four years.


What's the biggest prize that's gone through your shop?

$147,542.


What's the most a customer's spent in one visit?

$1450. He bought 100 Combo Eight tickets, and $50 worth of $5 Lotto tickets. It turned out to be a syndicate.

Have you had people try to cash losing tickets?

Yes, it's not at all uncommon. The vast majority, it's a mistake. The people who are dishonest are few and far between. We've had one where the guy had obviously tried to alter the date on the ticket because he had the right numbers in the wrong week.


So why a Lotto shop and how much?

We figured it would be a good opportunity, it came up for sale so we bought it. For the franchise itself you pay $15,000 to the Lotter-ies Commission, but you also have to buy the business from whoever owned the franchise previously, so around $100,000.


What percentage do you get from every ticket?

We get 7 per cent, the other 93 per cent goes to the Lotteries Commission, 7 per cent for their running costs, there's tax and the balance goes to the Lotteries Grants Board for distribution to the community.


What's the most common purchase and what's your busiest day?

The most common purchase is still the $5 lucky dip. Plain and simple. Saturday is the busiest day, and on average about 1800 people come through.


Do you buy a ticket every week?

Oh yes, I spend $20 a week. I last won something 15 months ago, it was only a fourth division, $33 or something.


Some say gambling is a very bad thing, what do you think?

It's like anything else. Alcohol can be a very bad thing, it's a matter of control. You can't build shelters for every person in society. You can't ban gambling because gambling is bad for a small section of people.

We have had to turn a regular away because she was in financial dire straits. I gave her a $5 lucky dip out of my own pocket and said come back when you've got things straightened out.


Do you see strange rituals?

There are people who have their rituals. There are some people who believe that some in the shop are luckier than others. I have people who come in who won't be served by anybody but me. We have people who come in who won't let anyone else see their tickets.

We have another guy who will not let us touch his tickets, he has to take them out of the machine himself.


Do people bug you about their wins and losses?

The funniest incident I had was about five years ago when we chartered a fishing boat on a Sunday.

The subject of Lotto came up and I said to the skipper of the boat that there was no major secret to Lotto, I made money on it every week without fail. All day long he pestered me for the secret. At 5 pm as I stepped off the boat I told him I owned a Lotto shop. He was annoyed.