(Reuters) – A Mega Millions ticket holder in California woke up much richer on Saturday after they matched all six numbers in the lottery hours before to win an estimated $1.3 billion, the fifth largest jackpot in the game’s history.
The winning ticket that matched the numbers 3, 7, 37, 49 and 55, plus the gold Mega Ball 6 during Friday’s drawing was sold in Cottonwood, California, about 200 miles north of San Francisco, Mega Millions said in a statement.
“What an amazing present this holiday season! At an incredibly special time of year, this is both an incredibly special moment for our winner,” Joshua Johnston, lead director for the Mega Millions Consortium.
The lottery reached the $1.269 billion mark after no one matched all six numbers in the previous 30 drawings. Odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 302,575,350.
The largest ever in U.S. lottery jackpot history came in November 2022 when a single ticket holder in California won a $2.04 billion Powerball jackpot.
(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Chicago; editing by Diane Craft)
