SACRAMENTO – A lucky retiree has finally come forward to claim the $166,599 jackpot from the August 12 Fantasy 5 draw.
“It was really an accident!” Richard Garcia stated of his play and subsequent win. As an occasional player, he never expected that one of his tickets would yield such a big prize. “The clerk told me I won, and I said, ‘Oh, good.’ But then he said, ‘No, you won, won’ and showed me the screen. I couldn’t believe it.”
Although he lives in Pittsburg and purchased the winning ticket there, Garcia has been in the Sacramento area caring for his ill mother. Garcia admitted he was a bit “embarrassed” to come into the Sacramento District Office to claim his prize, for fear of seeming too eager to get his winnings. On the contrary, California Lottery officials were anxious to meet him and happy to hear this devoted family man’s story of accidental good fortune.
Garcia has no immediate plans for the money and has yet to share the great news, but he is looking forward to using his winnings to help his family out wherever needed. After a few minutes of thinking, Garcia did state that he would like to use the money to buy a car that would be easier for his mother to ride in and maybe a new white picket fence for his her house.
The winning ticket was purchased at the Raley's supermarket at 375 Buchanan Road in Pittsburg. The winning numbers were 14, 13, 28, 35 and 27.
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.