San Jose Store Owner Cashes In On Lotto Sale; Mega Millions Winner A Mystery
SAN JOSE (CBS SF) -- The owner of a gift store in East San Jose where a person bought a lottery ticket to split a $648 million Mega Millions jackpot was awarded $1 million by the California State Lottery, a lottery spokeswoman said.
The million-dollar payment to the owner of Jenny's Gift Shop at 1818 Tully Road is the maximum bonus the state lottery gives to business owners where winning tickets are sold, California Lottery spokeswoman Cathy Johnston said.
Lottery officials do not yet know the identity of the co-winner of the $648 million jackpot, Johnston said.
"All we know is where it was sold," Johnston said.
Johnston said the San Jose winner of the interstate Mega Millions jackpot could claim their prize at one of the two state lottery offices in the Bay Area located in Hayward and South San Francisco.
The individual who bought the ticket at the shop hit the winning numbers 8, 20, 14, 17, 39 and the Mega number 7 for the near-record jackpot in Tuesday's drawing, lottery officials said.
San Jose Lottery Winner Remains A Mystery
Another person in Georgia chose the same winning numbers and will share the $648 million, according to Johnston.
In Atlanta, Georgia Lottery officials announced their winner as Ira Curry, of Stone Mountain, which is east of Atlanta. Officials say she bought one ticket and chose the numbers herself, using family birthdays and her family's lucky number, which is 7.
Georgia Lottery chief executive Debbie Alford says Curry is in a state of shock and that she plans to take the lump sum payout of $123 million after taxes.
Each winner has the option to take their half, $324 million, as an annuity paid off over 30 years or to choose an immediate lump sum payment of $173.8 million, California lottery spokesman Alex Traverso said.
Two tickets sold in San Diego County matched the first five numbers drawn but missed the jackpot-winning Mega number, lottery officials said.
Mega Millions, with tickets costing $1 each, is played in California and 42 other states, the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The odds of winning are 1 in 259 million, lottery officials said.
The jackpot won on Tuesday was only $8 million shy of the record Mega Millions award of $656 million won on March 30, 2012, by three winning tickets from Kansas, Illinois and Maryland, according to lottery officials.
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