By DUANE SCHRAG

Salina Journal

ABILENE -- At some point, Hope Higgins just might get used to winning the lottery.

Four years ago, she was one of two winners of a $3 million Super Kansas Cash jackpot.

On Monday night, she won it again, this time for $1.2 million.

"Actually, this is my fourth time to win," she said. The other two winners -- one last year, one the year before -- matched five of the six numbers. She won $2,000 each of those times.

"I was one number away from winning the jackpot," she said.

Higgins, 65, was nearing retirement when she won the jackpot in April 2004. Within a week, she gave notice that she was quitting her job as deputy register of deeds at the Dickinson County Courthouse.

"When we won in '04, we had plans to build onto our house, buy a lot, landscape," she said. "We've done that."

Now she once again is figuring out what to do with three-quarters of a million dollars (by her calculation, after taxes she'll get to keep about $740,000).

"I've got things pretty well worked out with what we're going to do," she said. "This time we're going to help our children out quite a bit. And we're going to donate to some charities, and invest in some securities."

John Higgins, her husband, estimates they each spend about $45 a week on lottery tickets.

"My husband plays all the games, but I concentrate on Kansas Cash," she said. "I feel the odds are better."

They're better than some games, worse than others. The Kansas Lottery Web site says that the odds of winning something in Super Kansas Cash are one in 12 -- for every $100 spent, $92 wins nothing. The odds of winning the jackpot are one in 2.5 million.

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Hope Higgins says she has some strategies for winning, at least where scratch-off tickets are concerned.

"I think all lottery players know this," she says. "Sometimes, at the beginning of a roll you'll have good luck. Sometimes, at the very end you'll have good luck. If none have been torn off, I feel those are better."

The odds of winning something in the scratch-off games certainly are better. They vary by game, but most are in the one-in-four or one-in-five range -- for every $100 spent, $75 to $80 wins nothing.

When she plays Super Kansas Cash, Higgins never chooses the numbers.

"I have heard it was better to let the computer pick," she said. "I think statistics have proven it."

Winning's still a thrill

Winning big still retains much of its thrill. When the winning numbers were announced Monday evening, she knew she had won the jackpot. She went down to West Stop West, the convenience store where she bought the ticket, to see if she could find out how much it was worth.

"They couldn't tell me because they didn't know how many tickets had been sold; it depends on the number of tickets," she said. She'd have to go to Kansas Lottery headquarters in Topeka to claim the prize.

She was up at 5:30 a.m. Tuesday, she said. On the road by 7:30. And in a couple of hours, she had one of those great big poster-board checks for $1,201,028.

The real one should arrive in a few days.

Should I keep playing?

Meanwhile, she's still mulling whether to keep playing.

"We're trying to decide if we're going to keep playing the lottery," she said. "We may try to play Powerball. It may come over me in the next month. If I get the feeling again, I'll certainly play again."

One of the things she plans to do with these new winnings is tour Kansas, take in some of the sights. But judiciously.

"Especially with the cost of gasoline," she said.

n Reporter Duane Schrag can be reached at 822-1422 or by e-mail at dschrag@salina.com.