New Yorkers are betting that the year of the pope's birth and time of his death will bring them fortune.

So many New York Lottery Win 4 players have bet the combination of 1-9-2-0, the year of the pope's birth, that the number sold out for tonight's drawings and both of yesterday's drawings.

Unlike Lotto, in which winners split a pot, Win 4 and Numbers guarantee fixed payouts to each winner - $5,000 for an exact match. The lottery agency caps potential winnings at $5 million, so numbers sell out, spokeswoman Jennifer Mauer said.

People are betting on the year and date (May 18) of the pope's birth, and the time of his death - 2:37 p.m. in Eastern Standard Time and 9:37 p.m. in Rome - for the Win 4 and three-digit Numbers games, said Yuri Tineo, a cashier at Community Market in Huntington Station.

"It's the pope," Tineo said. "I don't believe it's right to use a religious thing . . . because you want to hit the lotto."

Sellouts are not uncommon. On Sept. 9, 1999, the number 9999 sold out. In 1982, at least three states sold out of 2880, which was the batch number of cyanide-tainted Tylenol capsules.