By Jackson Holtz, Herald Writer

EVERETT — Isagani Almacen thought he won $28.

The 43-year-old Lynnwood man checked the Lotto ticket he bought a few days earlier in an electronic scanner and squinted at the display. His contact lenses were a bit blurry from dust and a day’s worth of allergies.

His daughter Ida, 8, helped him out.

“No, Dad, that’s two eight zero zero zero zero zero.”

On Tuesday, Isagani Almacen grinned as he collected a check from Washington’s Lottery for $2.8 million.

“It still hasn’t sunk in,” he said.

On May 15, the father and daughter stopped by a neighborhood 7-Eleven. He used a $20 bill to buy a Coca-Cola Classic Slurpee for himself and a Fanta Wild Cherry for Ida.

With some of the change, he purchased two $1 lottery tickets, quick picks for both the Lotto and Powerball games.

He doesn’t play that often.

“Not even every week or every month,” he said.

Last Thursday, Almacen returned to the convenience store to check his tickets: The Powerball was worthless; the Lotto, well, was worth a lot.

At first he didn’t believe his daughter. He handed the ticket to the clerk to double check.

“‘This is your lucky day,’” Almacen remembers the store manager saying. “At that point everything was a blur to me.”

Almacen said he plans to keep his job as a postal sorter for the U.S. Post Office. His wife will continue working too, he said.

They plan to use the winnings — a bit more than $1 million after taxes — to pay for a college education for his three children, and the rest will go into savings.

“Retirement looks a little nicer and a little sooner,” he said.

The family of five also plans to invite relatives, numbering more than 30, to a celebration.

Ida was treated to a new $50 Mario Bros. game at Best Buy. And Almacen said he’s considering replacing his contacts.

“Maybe glasses,” he said. “Very nice glasses.”

Reporter Jackson Holtz: jholtz@heraldnet.com.

For a lot of people, winning the lottery is the American dream. But for many lottery winners, the reality is more like a nightmare.

“Winning the lottery isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be,” says Evelyn Adams, who won the New Jersey lottery not just once, but twice (1985, 1986), to the tune of $5.4 million. Today the money is all gone and Adams lives in a trailer.

“I won the American dream but I lost it, too. It was a very hard fall. It’s called rock bottom,” says Adams.

“Everybody wanted my money. Everybody had their hand out. I never learned one simple word in the English language — ‘No.’ I wish I had the chance to do it all over again. I’d be much smarter about it now,” says Adams, who also lost money at the slot machines in Atlantic City.

“I was a big-time gambler,” admits Adams. “I didn’t drop a million dollars, but it was a lot of money. I made mistakes, some I regret, some I don’t. I’m human. I can’t go back now so I just go forward, one step at a time.”

Living on food stamps

William “Bud” Post won $16.2 million in the Pennsylvania lottery in 1988 but now lives on his Social Security.

“I wish it never happened. It was totally a nightmare,” says Post.

A former girlfriend successfully sued him for a share of his winnings. It wasn’t his only lawsuit. A brother was arrested for hiring a hit man to kill him, hoping to inherit a share of the winnings. Other siblings pestered him until he agreed to invest in a car business and a restaurant in Sarasota, Fla., — two ventures that brought no money back and further strained his relationship with his siblings.

Post even spent time in jail for firing a gun over the head of a bill collector. Within a year, he was $1 million in debt.

Post admitted he was both careless and foolish, trying to please his family. He eventually declared bankruptcy.

Now he lives quietly on $450 a month and food stamps.

“I’m tired, I’m over 65 years old, and I just had a serious operation for a heart aneurysm. Lotteries don’t mean (anything) to me,” says Post.

Deeper in debt

Suzanne Mullins won $4.2 million in the Virginia lottery in 1993. Now she’s deeply in debt to a company that lent her money using the winnings as collateral.

She borrowed $197,746.15, which she agreed to pay back with her yearly checks from the Virginia lottery through 2006. When the rules changed allowing her to collect her winnings in a lump sum, she cashed in the remaining amount. But she stopped making payments on the loan.

She blamed the debt on the lengthy illness of her uninsured son-in-law, who needed $1 million for medical bills.