SACRAMENTO – The winner from Saturday night’s Fantasy 5 draw, Marc Dentiz of Carpinteria, has reason to celebrate. The numbers he played – his children’s birthdays – paid off handsomely with a $117,859 prize.
Marc, a branch manager at Allied Electronics in Simi Valley, first learned of his good fortune when he made an unexpected pit stop this morning to buy his lunch for the day. “I first checked the ticket myself, and I thought it said I had won $117. I thought, ‘Great!’” Upon hearing from the clerk that he had in fact won more than $117,000, Marc’s surprising reply was “No, it is $117!” After again receiving confirmation of the larger prize, Marc was excited but remained calm. The sports enthusiast attributes his composure to the “highs and lows” that come with following his favorite teams.
With his winnings, Marc plans to pay off two cars, buy a new surfboard and take his wife of eight years, Karen, on a jewelry shopping spree. He also anticipates some requests from his nine children and stepchildren. When asked what advice he had for other prospective California Lottery players, Marc’s reply was an emphatic, “You can’t win if you don’t play!”
The winning numbers were 13, 16, 19, 22 and 23. The winning ticket was purchased at Beach Liquor at 794 Linden Avenue in Carpinteria.
The California Lottery wants to remind winners to sign the back of their ticket, keep tickets in a safe place and contact Lottery officials or visit your local Lottery District Office (http://www.calottery.com/AboutUs/Locations) as soon as possible. Winners have 180 days from the date of the draw to claim prizes.
Fantasy 5 offers some of the best odds of any California Lottery game. A player wins the Fantasy 5 jackpot simply by matching five numbers out of a field of 39. The top prize starts at $50,000 and can top $500,000 depending on how many times the top prize rolls over (similar to SuperLOTTO Plus and MEGA Millions). Winning numbers are drawn every day. Tickets can be purchased from any of the more than 20,000 California Lottery retailers (www.calottery.com/locations).
More than 95 cents of every Lottery dollar is returned to the community in the form of contributions to education, prizes and retail commissions. The California Lottery contributes at least 34 cents of every dollar that players spend on Lottery products to public education and returns more than 50 percent of sales to players in the form of prizes. Since its inception in 1985, the Lottery has contributed more than $20 billion to California schools out of total sales of nearly $55 billion. Retailers benefit too, earning $3.5 billion in compensation since 1985.