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$280 million dream sucks 'em in Mail Tribune / Jim Craven Clerk Valerie Cuellar of Medford sells Powerball tickets to Dick O'Brien of Medford at the Minute Market on Stewart Avenue. By SARAH LEMON With the Powerball lottery jackpot reaching $280 million for tonight's drawing, hopeful players are lining up to grab tickets. If you want yours, you have until just before 6 p.m. Ticket sales reached $1.4 million statewide Friday afternoon and were expected to climb to $2.5 million by the end of the day, said Oregon Lottery spokesman Lou Torres. Medford's Stewart Avenue Minute Market, the biggest lottery ticket purveyor in town, had already sold $1,500 in tickets by 4:30 p.m., employees said. Minute Market clerks Valerie Cuellar and Norma Ayers sell tickets to their regular customers but are hoping to strike it rich themselves. Cuellar said she already won $100 in Wednesday night's multistate Powerball drawing, but that just wasn't enough. She invested $40 of her winnings in more Powerball tickets and has her fingers crossed for tonight's drawing. Although the chances of winning are only one in 80 million, Ayers tells her customers they can win by spending just a dollar. She took her own advice, purchasing just one $1 Powerball ticket. If she wins, she said she plans to take a trip to Australia and make sure her kids were well taken care of. Ayers and Cuellar said it's about a 50-50 split between electronically shuffled "quick-pick" sales and customers who choose their numbers. Most people who pick their own figures reuse them from day to day, said Cuellar. But picking those five numbers plus the Powerball digit for the first time can be a ponderous process. The two women said they're more than happy to help Powerball virgins fill out their first forms, which keeps people coming back. Cuellar said she sold $250 worth of numbers Tuesday night to a customer who normally tosses between $200 and $300 into the pot every week. Medford resident Stan Kolpak is a weekly Powerball player. When a neighbor won $400,000, he said he figured he better keep trying his hand. What would he do if he won? "I would give everyone in this store a million dollars," he joked. Oregon Lottery estimates 93 percent of the possible number combinations will have been chosen by tonight. Powerball hopefuls can see the live drawing tonight at 7:59 on KOBI-TV (Channel 5), said Torres. But ticket sellers are reminding customers today's cutoff time is 5:55 p.m. for choosing winning numbers. Reach reporter Sarah Lemon at 776-4487, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.