SACRAMENTO – Norman Weber today came forward to claim the first of nine $1 million prizes awarded in the Million Dollar Raffle Grand Prize drawing held Saturday, March 17. Weber’s winning seven digit Raffle number was 1659513, one of nine selected by the California Lottery on St. Patrick’s Day that are now worth a cool $1 million cash.
Weber discovered he was a Million Dollar Raffle Grand Prize winner when he checked the winning numbers Sunday morning in his local newspaper.
“I was looking through the paper to check the results when I realized I had one of the winning Raffle numbers,” Weber said. “The funny thing is, at that very moment, I was calling the person who convinced me to buy a Raffle ticket in the first place. Talk about coincidences!”
If that isn’t amazing enough, Weber spent $20 and took advantage of the Lottery’s buy four Raffle numbers, get one free, promotion. And wouldn’t you know it; it was that fifth and free Raffle number that has now made Weber $1 million wealthier. Weber purchased his Million Dollar Raffle ticket at Bonfare Market in Castro Valley.
A self-employed information technology consultant, Mr. Weber says that he doesn’t consider himself to be a materialistic person and won’t make many changes in his life. “I’m not a lavish person and I am very content with everything I have in my life. I plan to invest my winnings as part of my retirement savings.” One thing Mr. Weber says he will be spending his winnings on, doing something special for that friend who told him to pick up a Raffle ticket!
The Million Dollar Raffle offered Lottery players the best odds of winning a million bucks ever offered by a California Lottery game. Nine Grand Prize winning Raffle numbers worth $1 million cash each were drawn on St. Patrick’s Day, March 17. Four preliminary draws were held leading up to the Grand Prize drawing and 40 Raffle numbers worth $10,000 each were selected. Click here for a full list of the Grand Prize winning Raffle numbers and where they were sold. To search to see if your Raffle number was a winner, visit http://www.calottery.com/Games/Raffle/WinningNumbers/.
The California Lottery contributes at least 34 cents of every dollar that players spend on Lottery products to public education. The Lottery contributed $1.28 billion to public education in 2005-06 out of sales of $3.58 billion, the sixth year in a row the Lottery has provided more than $1 billion in supplemental funding for education. Retailers won too, earning over $252 million in compensation last year selling Lottery products. Since its inception in 1985, the Lottery has contributed more than $18 billion to California schools.