SACRAMENTO – A retired maintenance manager and his wife rode in style to the Lottery’s Sacramento District Office, arriving in a limousine – all the way from their home town of Pleasanton – to claim their winnings.
Ralph Whitaker purchased his ticket for last Wednesday’s draw and found out about his big win the following day. He was “very nervous” upon learning about the $193,467 windfall.
Talking about his plans for the money, Whitaker said the couple plans to “put some in the bank, invest some, and spend the rest on our kids.” Added his wife Donna, “treasurer” of the family: “You forgot to mention your plan to play golf five days a week.”
The ticket was sold at S&B Liquor, 855 East Stanley Boulevard in Livermore.
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. Winning numbers are drawn every day. The top prize starts at $50,000 and increases daily until it is hit. Tickets are $1 and can be purchased from any of the more than 21,000 California Lottery retailers.
The California Lottery is celebrating 25 years of enhancing education and supporting local communities. 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 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 the Lottery’s inception in 1985, Lottery players have contributed nearly $22 billion to California schools out of total sales of more than $59 billion. Retailers benefit too, earning $3.8 billion in compensation since 1985.