Last modified: Friday, October 5, 2007 12:42 AM EDT John Elkhatib of Border Bets $ Butts in Attleboro sells a $20 Billion Dollar Blockbuster ticket. (Staff photo by MARTIN GAVIN) New game a good bet BY BRETT CORRIGAN FOR THE SUN CHRONICLE After only a week on the market, local residents are already cashing in on the Lottery's newest ticket. The Billion Dollar Blockbuster game, which began on Sept. 25, has already sold about 2 million tickets statewide at $20 each. "The structure of the game is excellent, far better than any other game in the lottery so far," said John Elkhatib, owner of Border Bets & Butts in Attleboro, "It gives me confidence and makes me feel good because there are better odds, which makes me happy for the people of the neighborhood." Elkhatib isn't the only one feeling good about the new game. He says some of his customers have already had $500 and $200 winning tickets. Since the structure of the game allows for frequent payoffs, customers are more comfortable shelling out the extra money for the $20 tickets, the Lottery's highest priced ticket, ever. The top prize is $1 million dollars a year for life. The game also offers 140 other big payoffs of $1 million to $10 million. But the winning doesn't stop there. Also in the cards are more than 40,000 prizes ranging from $1,000 to $25,000 and 6 million winning tickets that pay off $40 to $500. "If you buy one, you usually get money back or way more than you've paid," said Melissa Cusson, an employee at Vista Donuts in Attleboro, which sells an average of 200 to 400 of the tickets per register per day. "People are really anticipating the millions," Cusson said. "We've had a lot of winners" on the smaller payouts. Both stores said customers buy an average of one to three tickets at a time, although occasionally some have bought a whole book of 100 tickets. Shirley Pawlowski, another employee at Vista Donuts, says the store sees a $100 winner every 10 to 15 tickets, and on their second day of ticket sales, they had a $500 winner.