SACRAMENTO – Robert Catena, an Orange County business owner, recently came forward to claim his $1 million cash prize awarded in the Million Dollar Raffle Grand Prize drawing held Saturday, March 17. Catena’s winning seven digit Raffle number was 1868339.
Catena discovered he was a Million Dollar Raffle Grand Prize winner when he checked the winning numbers Sunday morning in his local newspaper.
“I stared at the numbers for about 30 minutes, I couldn’t believe it,” Catena said. “Right now, I’m adding on to my house and will invest some of it back into my business, it takes a little financial pressure off.” When asked if he had ever won anything else in his life, he replied, “The only other thing I have ever won was a bowling ball! This sure beats a bowling ball!”
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.