"Ott" Brown was a gentle man with a bare-knuckles job.

Since the moment he came to Connecticut in 1993, Brown spent long days and much thought trying to persuade more and more people to gamble on a 7 million-to-1 long shot, a trying, controversial mission that put him at odds with some of the state's most powerful elected officials.

Selling the state on the lottery -- it was the kind of work that might have called for a tough guy, or maybe a snake-oil salesman.

But that was not Otho R. Brown.

Rather, the gray-haired, easy-smiling man who ran the state's lottery was a decent, soft-spoken, honest husband and father of a boy and twin girls who was devoted to his professional mandate: bringing more money into the state treasury.

"He was simply one of the biggest and most gentle men I've ever met," said Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who just last Tuesday went head-to-head with Brown at a public hearing.

Blumenthal spoke in favor of a bill in the legislature to ban midday daily numbers drawings, a sales-boosting initiative introduced by Brown on Feb. 2.

Blumenthal and Democrats on the legislative committee that held the hearing oppose the midday drawings, saying they will tempt more children and compulsive gamblers to play the game.

"At the end of my own appearance, I remarked to the committee it was not about personality or partisanship, and Otho Brown and I would probably go out afterward and have a cup of coffee together," Blumenthal recalled. "As I was standing outside the committee room [Brown] said, 'You did a real good job. Let's go out and get that cup of coffee.' "

Brown arrived in Connecticut only four years ago, after a 20-year career of government service in Delaware, including four years as director of that state's lottery.

In November 1993, he was chosen from a field of 58 applicants to head Connecticut's lottery, which at the time was part of the state Division of Special Revenue.

He is credited with boosting sales of instant tickets and introducing the multistate Powerball lottery to Connecticut during his tenure.

Two years ago, at the behest of Republican Gov. John G. Rowland, the legislature gave the lottery more autonomy by creating a quasi-public corporation to run the games. The idea was to allow the lottery to operate more like a business, with the hope that more efficient operations and more aggressive marketing would bring in more money for the state.

Brown, who was appointed in the last days of Gov. Lowell P. Weicker Jr.'s administration, was tapped by Rowland to be president and chief executive officer of the new corporation.

But even after moving to Avon with his wife and three young children, Brown maintained much of the country-boy demeanor of his rural Delaware roots.

He was born Nov. 29, 1943, and grew up on a farm in Bear, Del., then a quiet backwoods that has since grown into a rapidly sprawling suburb. His father was managing editor of The Morning News, now The News Journal, in Wilmington, Del.

Until moving north, Brown continued to live on the family property. Only recently did he decide that his future would be in Connecticut and the Delaware house should be sold, said Brown's sister, Carol B. Harrington, of Bear.

As a young man, Brown was wiry, standing 6 feet tall and weighing 112 pounds when he won a high school wrestling championship, said his close friend and college roommate, Thomas Whittington, a prominent Wilmington, Del., lawyer.

At 54, Brown was still slender, although no longer a flyweight. Age, or the recent frustrations of his job, seemed to be taking a toll. His hair had faded to gray and thinned at the temples in recent years.

On Friday morning, accounts of the shooting indicated Brown tried to save his co-workers.

Whittington said he was not surprised. He had seen that quality before.

The two shared an apartment while they were students at the University of Delaware. They sublet a room to another student. One night, while Brown and Whittington were playing cards, they heard their tenant beating up his girlfriend.

Brown got up from the card table and challenged the abusive boyfriend, who Whittington said was much bigger than Brown. "It was like watching a bull and a matador," Whittington said. Brown won.

Brown and his wife, Denise, came to parenthood later in life, said Stephen Golding, former Delaware budget director, who hired Brown into his first state job as a budget analyst in 1983.

In addition to his wife and sister, Brown leaves a 9-year-old son, Alexander, and 8-year-old twin daughters Elizabeth and Marion. His father died in 1988, his mother died last May, and one brother was killed in an automobile accident in 1973.

Described as a doting father, he was "mesmerized" by his twins, Golding said.

Brown moved quickly up the ranks of Delaware's state government, landing in the executive office in 1986 as deputy chief of staff to then-Gov. Michael N. Castle, a Republican who is now Delaware's only congressman.

"In Delaware he was on the fast track," Castle said Friday.

Castle named Brown director of the state lottery in 1987, a job Brown kept until 1991. "He was a natural fit as a lottery director; he had good financial and management skills," Castle said. "He was businesslike and friendly at the same time."

Brown's affable personality and reputation for integrity won him respect, if not free rein, in Connecticut.

State Sen. Alvin W. Penn, D-Bridgeport and co-chairman of the legislature's public safety committee, which oversees legalized gambling, had frequent philosophical clashes with Brown. Penn liked to accuse Brown of turning the state into a "bookie."

Between complaints from Penn's committee and Blumenthal's office, Brown was forced to scuttle at least two of his money-making strategies, including one in which store clerks were asked to remind their customers that they could buy lottery tickets.

During the fiscal year that ended last June, Brown's lottery corporation took in $251 million for the state, falling short of the $260 million target. Brown had hoped a television bingo game would allow him to meet this year's profit target of $285 million. But Blumenthal said such a game would be illegal.

Despite their professonal differences, Penn said he always trusted Brown.

"Someone in the gaming process has to be of impeccable integrity, has to be above reproach, because he deals with so much money," Penn said. "I was glad to be able to say Ott was of impeccable reputation."

Information from The News Journal, of Wilmington, Del., is included in this report.