(MONEY Magazine) – He deals with dreamers and telephone screamers, all of whom want a piece of his clients' $161.5 million lottery windfall. They flood his office with calls--more than 200 a day in the spell shortly after he started representing a group of Columbus, Ohio machinists known as the Lucky 13. The callers share a single overarching belief and hope: Fools and their money are soon parted.

There was the producer who wanted to make a movie about the Lucky 13--if they underwrote it. There was the songwriter who wanted to celebrate the Lucky 13 lyrically--if they'd just free him up with some cash. There was the fellow who sought $400,000 to expand his radiator-repair business--a great long-term investment for the 13 lottery winners, he swore, and a great short-term deal for one lawyer: $50,000 under the table to recommend the investment.

No, said the lawyer to one and all; 200 times a day, no. His doctor of jurisprudence degree says the fellow's name is Laurence Sturtz. The more fitting moniker, these days, is Dr. No. He doesn't pass along these once-in-a-lifetime opportunities to his clients. He doesn't let reporters or real estate agents within a mile of them. He has never relented in his vigilance, and only now, a few weeks after the event, is he allowing himself to think that maybe, just maybe, the Lucky 13 have emerged unfleeced from their first brush with fortune.

"I'm now relaxing about my fears," he tells me over lunch in a Columbus restaurant. "We got control of [the situation] and kept the crazies away."

The tale of the Lucky 13--their respective choices and courses--must play itself out before happy endings can be declared. But so far Larry Sturtz has kept his clients from contributing to a depressing (and unconfirmable) statistic he likes to recite, particularly to his clients: Three-fifths of lottery winners file for bankruptcy within three years.

This is not the sort of grim reality you'll hear from lottery officials, who are, after all, peddling fantasy. To millions of Americans, playing the lottery is like heaving a Hail Mary pass, which just might transform their lives into days of wine and roses. Iowa lottery commissioner Edward Stanek, Powerball's co-creator, even talks about his game as an entertainment genre. "Our tickets don't cost several dollars, like most sporting events; our tickets cost one dollar," he says. "It's America's game."

But few lottery players stop at a buck, in some cases plunking down far more than warranted by their incomes--which is $34,100, on average, according to one recent study. And fewer still may be equipped to handle the trauma if the fantasy does come true. That average player, a high school graduate, is plunged into shark-infested waters where salesmen circle, relatives grasp, privacy ends. Some New York State lottery winners even ran support sessions called the Millionaires Circle Club.

The stakes and perils of lottery playing have lately been ratcheted up even more, thanks to Powerball, a game played in 20 states and the District of Columbia. Its format was changed last November, making winning tougher (a 1-in-80-million chance), jackpots bigger and interest keener. In May, Powerball produced a record $104.3 million payout, won by a retired electrician who's now in semi-seclusion. By July, the jackpot and the nation's Powerball fever reached new heights. Powerball's 45,000 retail outlets were overrun by players, particularly near state lines, where out-of-staters flocked to buy tickets.

The Lucky 13 were drawn to Powerball like moths to flame. A group of machinists who worked at a company called ATS Automation Tooling Systems in a Columbus suburb, they'd been playing the lottery for seven years, pooling modest sums to play Ohio's game. Ranging in age from twentysomething to sixtysomething, they didn't have all that much in common, but this little gaming avocation gave them a group identity. So on Tuesday, July 28, they anted up $10 a man and designated a driver to head two hours west on I-70 to the sovereign Powerball state of Indiana. Just over the state line, he pulled into a Speedway gas station and plunked down $130 for tickets.

The following night, the drawing was televised nationally at 10:59. In the homes of the Lucky 13, whoops erupted, slumbers ended, phones rang. The cash payout, they soon learned, was $161.5 million. Divided by 13, that was, Lord almighty, $12.4 million! It was a tsunami washing over hitherto modest lives, and some of the winners just had to get together, which they did in the place they shared in common: the factory. When ATS accounting and administrative manager Barbara Palmer came in the next morning, she found a conference room full of people wired from a night of caffeine and adrenaline. It was hard to tell whether they were celebrating their great fortune or huddling against a gargantuan storm.

But some of the Lucky 13 had the presence of mind to decide they needed a lawyer--and fast. A winner's businessman son recommended a local firm, Carlile Patchen & Murphy. One of its partners had been through media firestorms before, as attorney to Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt. That partner was Sturtz. By 9 a.m., he was at the ATS plant.

The winning ticket, he quickly learned, was not. The group had decided to turn it in at Hoosier Lottery headquarters. Two of the winners were preparing to tear back west on I-70, to Indianapolis. Sturtz blanched. The ticket was a bearer instrument, payable to anyone who presented it--say, a highwayman. He asked his new clients, "Do you realize that's like carrying $160 million in gold bullion?" Fortunately, he was able to catch the two before they hit the road and had a private security detail transport the ticket to a nearby bank for safekeeping.

Then Sturtz told his clients what they had to do: Get their estates in order, complete with wills, trusts and the other accoutrements of high-net-worth individuals. Get a good investment adviser. Learn to say no, to hang up the phone, to shed their Middle American openness. "It's not immoral to lie about this," he said. "Just say, 'No, I'm not a lottery winner.'"

One thing they wanted to do, the Luckies made clear, was stay anonymous--more difficult, apparently, than winning the lottery. The sister-in-law of one winner had already tipped off a reporter, and by that afternoon a forest of minicams was on the machinist-millionaire's front lawn. John Jarrell obliged the media with a photo op and dropped the tidbit that his wife would soon have a "hers" Harley to match his. But that hardly sated the pack, he found. He and his family became the first to move to a new home--not so much a move up as a hideout.

Some of the 13 have changed their phone numbers and packed off their families to parts unknown; none except Jarrell have been unmasked. It was Sturtz who convinced Hoosier Lottery officials that it was perfectly aboveboard to wire $161.5 million into a trust, so he could keep the Lucky 13 underground. And it was Sturtz who showed up in Indianapolis with the ticket and ran the media gauntlet. (These exertions may have taken their toll--he had angioplasty surgery in late August.)

Meanwhile, there are a few things we know about his clients. They haven't gone hog wild with their money, the Jarrells' "hog" notwithstanding. When Sturtz met with the Luckies the week after their win, he was pleased at how many had become conversant with tax-free municipal bonds. They tossed around the virtues of munis as if they were talking about the prospects of Ohio State's Buckeyes. This healthy respect for tax-advantaged instruments happens, apparently, after taxes have trimmed one's take-home prize by about $5.9 million.

The Luckies, most of them adamant that their children not be spoiled by money, are setting up trusts. One is said to have told his financial adviser that he didn't see any need to spend over $60,000 a year. Umm, said the adviser, how about $120,000? And though some are in the real estate market, in one form or another, their idea of second homes isn't quite the Hamptons. One has set himself up for a weekend getaway spot: a piece of land in the wilderness on which he'll install a doublewide trailer. "I know I sound like a hillbilly, but I just want to do some hunting and fishing," he told ATS' Barb Palmer. "I can't see me buying a mansion. That's not me."

There have been some splurges, to be sure. The Luckies have been booking passage on cruises and buying some swell new cars. There's been a parade of shiny loaners through the ATS parking lot, as they show off models they have on order. One twentysomething Lucky was buying so many vehicles and running them so hard that the rest of the group doubted he'd survive August. So they sat the kid down for a talk.

How grounded are these guys? Nine of the 13 kept showing up for work virtually every day in the month following their entry to millionairehood. One even apologized for taking a day off. But in the long run, continuing as if nothing happened probably is not realistic. For one thing, as long as they're at ATS, they're findable. Women send photos there, in hope of getting Lucky; desperate voices call, sobbing that the winners are their last hope.

The Luckies' own best hope may be character. You can't cheat an honest man, and they seem to be certifiably good guys. The world may have scoffed when Bob Kronk, an ATS veteran who'd helped some of the Luckies financially in leaner times, was quoted as saying: "I'm sure they'll take care of me." Well, they did take care of him. They paid off his mortgage and vehicle loans and set him up with some cash so he can retire. When I tried to get in touch with him in August, he was off on a cruise.