People

By Guy D. Garcia

The odds were so staggering that no one had ever bothered to figure them out. Even though Evelyn Marie Adams had already won $3.9 million in New Jersey's Pick-6 lottery last October, it did not stop her from plunking down another buck. In fact, she raised her weekly total bet from 60 to 100 tickets. And, wonder of numbers, she hit again last week, this time for nearly $1.5 million, becoming the first two-time winner of a million-dollar-plus state lottery. Stunned officials had to consult a statistics professor before determining that Adams had just beaten odds of 17.3 trillion to 1. Both of her winning tickets were purchased at the 7-Eleven store in Point Pleasant that her fiance owns and she has managed for the past decade. Adams was back at work the day after her win was announced, but the couple are planning to sell the store before they marry in April. "I want to go to business school," she says. "I've got to learn how to manage this money." Will she play again? "They say good things come in threes, so . . ." Then she reconsidered and decided to quit after all. "I'm going to give everyone else a chance."