(Reuters) – The owner of a Mega Millions ticket in California woke up very rich on Saturday after matching all six numbers in the lottery hours before winning an estimated $1.3 billion, the fifth largest in the game's history.
The winning ticket that matched the numbers 3, 7, 37, 49 and 55, and Mega Ball Gold (NYSE: ) 6 during Friday's drawing was sold in Cottonwood, California, about 200 miles north of San Francisco, Mega Millions said in a statement.
What a wonderful gift this holiday season! In a special time of year, this is a special time for us to win,” Joshua Johnston, lead director of the Mega Millions Consortium.
The lottery reached the $1.269 billion mark after no one matched six numbers in the previous 30 drawings. The odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 302,575,350.
The largest in US lottery history came in November 2022 when a ticket holder in California won the $2.04 billion Powerball jackpot.