Winning ticket for $1.22 billion Mega Millions jackpot sold in California

Santa came a little late, but he brought one person a $1.22 billion Mega Millions jackpot as a stocking stuffer.

A single ticket bought in California matched all numbers in Friday’s drawing — 3, 7, 37, 49, 55 and a Mega Ball of 6 — to win the estimated $1.22 billion top prize.

The jackpot-winning ticket was sold at Sunshine Food and Gas in Cottonwood, a community of around 6,000 in Northern California, south of Redding, according to the state lottery website.

The jackpot has been building since its clock was reset on Sept. 13 after someone in Texas took a $810 million jackpot, Mega Millions officials said. No ticket matched all six numbers revealed in previous drawing on Christmas Eve.

When no one wins the jackpot, it rolls over, and ticket sales contribute to the growth of the top prize.

If the person who bought the ticket lives in California, they could take home the maximum amount. The state one of the eight in which state governments don’t tax lottery winnings.

The win Friday night is the fifth-largest in the history of the game. What had been the fifth-biggest, a jackpot of $1.128 billion, was claimed Monday, months after the March 26 drawing.

That winning ticket was purchased at a ShopRite in Neptune Township, New Jersey, Mega Millions officials said. New Jersey winners have a year to make such a claim.

“It is common for large jackpot winners to take their time to file a claim,” Mega Millions officials said in the statement.

The winner, who chose protection under New Jersey law to remain anonymous, opted for the prize’s cash value, estimated at $537.5 million before state and federal taxes, Mega Millions officials said.

The federal tax on such an amount is likely to be 37%; New Jersey would tax it at 8%.

The Mega Millions jackpot found a winner three times in 2024 so far. It’s a number officials said would amount to the fewest jackpot wins in a year since the seven-state Big Game became Mega Millions in 2002.

Mega Millions, played in 45 states, Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands, produced 10 jackpots in 2023, the most since the game underwent major changes in 2013, officials said in a statement on Monday.

A player from Florida claimed the largest Mega Millions jackpot, $1.602 billion, in August 2023. As large as that amount is, however, it could not surpass fellow multi-state lottery game Powerball’s most valuable jackpot, $2.040 billion, recorded in November 2022.