Nebraska lottery retailer cashes in on Wyoming, Colorado border locale

Joe Ruff

Wednesday, March 27, 2002 | 9:35 a.m.

KIMBALL, Neb. -- A sticker on the front door of Big Al's Mini-Mart reads: "Nebraska Lottery: Play Here."

It gives no hint to the fact that in eight years of lottery sales, Big Al's downtown store and Citgo gas station has sold $1.7 million worth of Powerball, Scratch, Pick 5 and Lotto tickets.

In a town of 2,560 people, that is $671.70 spent on the lottery for every man, woman and child in town -- or $83.96 per person each of those eight years.

When just counting Kimball's 1,906 eligible gamblers -- everyone age 19 or older -- it amounts to $902.18 per person or $112.77 annually.

That is more money spent per person on lottery tickets than any site in Nebraska, according to an Associated Press analysis of lottery sales figures.

Big Al's owner Al Schilz is not surprised.

Kimball is 14 miles north of the Colorado border, which did not offer the multistate Powerball game until August. It is 25 miles east of the Wyoming border, a state that does not offer any lottery games.

"We've had people from Colorado drive 2 1/2 hours to buy tickets here," Schilz said.

They didn't just buy lottery tickets, said Schilz, who stocks his store shelves with hot breakfasts and pizza, candy, soft drinks, laundry soap and windshield fluid, milk, sandwiches and combs.

"When they drove out here they bought a Coke, or a candy bar and that helped," Schilz said.

People from Colorado and Wyoming flocked to Kimball in 1998, when Powerball jackpots hit record levels of $195 million in May and $295.7 million in July.

Schilz's store was packed with people lined up into the street. His store sold 22,000 tickets on July 29 that year, at $1 each.

"We made seven trips to the bank," Schilz said. "There were three of us behind the counter. My son manned the Powerball all day."

Kimball is the county's largest community and the only one with lottery sales. Bushnell to the west has 162 people and Dix to the east has 267. The closest lottery outlet is in Potter, 17 miles to the east in Cheyenne County.

With about 4,000 residents, Kimball County leads the state's 93 counties in lottery sales per resident, a fact attributed to its location bordering Colorado and Wyoming.