Liquor stores and convenience stores filled up with people late Wednesday afternoon, but they were not there to buy beer and pretzels.

Instead, long lines of students, professors and DeKalb residents snaked around the inside of the stores to buy Lotto tickets for a jackpot of $60 million to a single winner.

While Shawn Thrower of The Bottle Store, 1022 W. Lincoln Hwy., waited at the cash register for a customer who wanted to buy liquor, he looked at the line of about 30 people buying Lotto tickets.

Thrower said hardly anyone came to buy liquor. “It has been strictly Lotto,” he said.

NIU junior Adrian Townsend said he buys Lotto tickets every week. This week, he bought 10.

And what would Townsend do with millions of dollars? “Quit school and go to Jamaica, kick back and relax and take care of my family,” he said.

As the 7 p.m. deadline to buy tickets approached, the line at the 7-Eleven Food Store, 930 Annie Glidden Road, wrapped around the walls and approached the door.

However, the ticket machine shuts down automatically at the deadline no matter how many people are in line.

Store management said ticket purchases escalated all week and an employee said he sold 105 tickets to one customer.

One manager joked that if there was no winner Wednesday, an addition to the store would be needed to hold next week’s lines.

“It’s fun. Everybody is in a pretty good mood about it,” the manager said.

An NIU business professor said he thinks his chances are about 1 in 25 million but bought 20 tickets anyway. “I usually buy when the jackpot grows to $20 million,” the professor said. “Someone is going to win.”

NIU student Jim Kopka said The National Enquirer held the winning number for his astrological sign, Aquarius: 9-16-19-24-40-48.

But his stars had fallen because the winning Lotto numbers Wednesday were 7-9-19-29-32-53.