SALINAS, Calif. — The Browns, owners of Mr. Clean Laundromat in Salinas, Calif., both struck it big in the California Lottery when they each won a prize within a year of each other.Rita Brown, 54, won $64,000 playing the “Crack the Safe” game on the California Lottery’s Make Me a Millionaire show that aired on TV earlier this month.Brown’s husband, Dave, won $50,000 less than a year ago after spinning the wheel on the “Big Spin.”“It feels like somebody dropped pennies from heaven,” Rita Brown told The Californian.Brown outlasted her fellow contestants in the first round of the game, winning $32,000, and then doubled her money when she went on to the second round.Brown usually buys five scratch-offs a week at $1 apiece, she told The Californian. Make “Me a Millionaire” players can win $2 to $500 or a chance to compete on the TV show.Brown says she’ll spend some of the money on a Hawaiian vacation and save the rest. “In these times of budget crisis, it’s nice to just have money you can put away and save,” she says.It’s a good thing that both Browns won, though. “When he won his money, he said he wouldn’t share,” Rita Brown laughingly told The Californian. “He bought himself a burgundy Corvette.”
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