SACRAMENTO – An Orange County hairdresser can now afford to pamper herself a little, thanks to last night’s MEGA Millions draw. The lucky lady was able to parlay a $5 Quick Pick ticket into $214,190, making her ticket one of four sold in Southern California that matched five of six numbers.
The woman, who asked to remain anonymous, bought her ticket on Tuesday and then happily discovered last night that she had matched five of six numbers. Her immediate plan is to purchase a house for herself and her kids. When asked if she planned to save a few bucks for tickets for Friday night’s $325 million drawing, her answer was a very simple “of course!”
Her winning ticket was purchased at the Mobil gas station located at 8482 Westminster Blvd. in Westminster. The winning numbers were 40, 19, 22, 3, 12 and 2. No one matched all six numbers in last night’s draw, making the jackpot for Friday night’s draw a whopping $325 million – the largest lottery jackpot in the nation and the third largest MEGA Millions jackpot of all time.
The California Lottery wants to remind winners to sign the back of their tickets, keep tickets in a safe place and contact Lottery officials or visit their local Lottery District Office (www.calottery.com/AboutUs/Locations) as soon as possible. Winners have 180 days from the date of the draw to claim prizes.
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 nearly $21 billion to California schools out of total sales of nearly $56 billion. Retailers benefit too, earning $3.6 billion in compensation since 1985.