As she started her shift on a recent Tuesday, Ann Kearns said something people say all the time, but it feels different in this room. She said: “You never know.’’

But she does know; it happens.

People bet on the concept of “you never know’’ a lot in this state; we spend almost $4.5 billion a year on the lottery. Which means that people actually do hit it big. Kearns meets them all, all the time. In Massachusetts, she’s the St. Peter of scratch tickets.

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She’s 79 and is from Weymouth and says “hihowaya.’’ And in her time behind the reception desk at the state lottery claims center, Kearns has greeted lots of people who have just won lots of money. Thirteen hundred times, it has been someone who had all five numbers and won $100,000 in MassCash. For the bigger ones, the giant numbers written on giant checks, she has watched over $2.8 billion in winners walk in the door. You never know.

It was the Tuesday after a holiday weekend, and as the first customers walked in, Kearns hoped the extra day would mean they would have more winners. She genuinely roots for them, says she’s not jealous and means it. She’s a “good for you, hon,’’ kind of lady with the studied politeness of a veteran people person. She asks after your mother and uses your first name at the end of a sentence. She’s the only person to hold the job since it was created a decade ago.

The sliding doors opened and the first two customers came in, guys who got out of pickup trucks, guys who had won a grand on scratch tickets and had been to the room before and knew Kearns and what to do. There’s a lot of this, for she’ll spend most of her day greeting people who are cashing in scratch tickets that are small, at least by her standards, just a couple grand. Since 1974, when Massachusetts invented the scratch ticket, we’ve been crazy about them. They’re as Massachusetts as Dunkin’ Donuts and the Bruins. If you win more than $600 you have to go to one of the five claims centers in the state. But if you hit a big one, more than $50,000, you have to go to headquarters in Braintree and see Kearns. And, to be honest, it is those big winners that she looks for. Spotting them is the best part.

The quiet ones are the most interesting, she said. They’ll walk in, have a look around, uncertain of where to move, where to breathe, and almost melt when they hear her ask if they are here to cash a ticket. There’s a disbelief and shock covering their movements like drying plaster. They’re in a suspended state, unable to breath until someone from the lottery tells them that they really have won. On this day, it happened just before 11.

A guy walked in, playing it cool, said nothing to Kearns when she handed him a form to fill out, then took it to one of the bulletproof windows behind which clerks process the checks. They tried to put Kearns behind that thick glass when they redid the lobby seven years ago, but she wasn’t having it.

When she heard the clerk tell him it would take about 30 minutes to process, her eyes lit up. That meant he’d won big and they were going to make triple-sure he didn’t owe any back taxes or child support, which come right out of the jackpot. He was clean and had hit for $100,000. He apologized, but he was too freaked out to talk to a reporter.

While the quiet ones are the most interesting, she said it’s not always so mysterious. There are easy tells, such as a limo and a lawyer and the family. But not always. Candido Oliveira, an unemployed guy from Dorchester who hit for $32 million this summer, came with his girlfriend, unannounced, after spending a few days playing the guitar to celebrate. He was a quiet one; by the end of the press conference, he could barely breathe.

The truth, of course, is that the claims center is a weird place all the time. People who win money are not themselves. For the most part, it’s a place of heightened happiness, but there are also moments of equally large, maybe even larger, failures.

Not so rarely, people will think they have won when they have not. They didn’t scratch enough. They confused their ticket with the printout of the winning numbers at the store. One guy came in a limo with his family. He thought he’d won a million dollars. He stormed out when he found out that he hadn’t.

There was the guy who thought he’d won $50. Brought his wife with him and was going to take her to lunch. It was actually $50,000, so he bought her a car instead. While he was there, someone walked in to claim a $10 million scratch ticket.

The claims center on this day was fairly routine, people cashing nice jackpots, but not exactly life-altering; the room was mellow. Then it happened. Kearns caught a big one, an obvious one, in the form of Marie Ellard, who bounded into the room like a golden retriever. Her husband, Kevin, buys a scratch ticket every morning on the way to work for a flooring place in Littleton, and on Saturday he had scratched a half-million dollar winner. While he was a quiet one, nervous energy blasted out of her; she just wouldn’t, couldn’t believe it until they told her it was so. She locked the ticket in her mother’s safe all weekend and had nightmares about getting into a car accident on the ride from North Reading.

“I just want them to say, ‘That’s what you won,’’ she said as her legs vibrated in place and she stared back through the glass as the clerks processed the ticket. They needed this, she said. It was going toward a house. They had six kids and had been living with her father. When the clerk called their name, she sprinted back to the window.

“How much is it?’’ she asked the clerk. He told her it was for a half million dollars. “It is!’’ she gasped as she threw her hands on her head. “Half a million dollars!’’

Over at her desk, Ann Kearns smiled.

People walk into that room and leave changed, which means that greeting the winners is only half her job. Kearns will say goodbye to them, too, and in that instance, she has a canned line. Her regulars - the ones who bought scratch tickets out of the vending machines in the room while they waited for their checks - are superstitious about getting it, and they’ll wait for her if she’s on the phone.

“I hope I see you again,’’ she’ll say to everyone as they leave.

They hope so, too.

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