$2 Million Mega Millions Ticket Sold In CA As Jackpot Hits $868M

SAN FRANCISCO, CA — The Mega Millions jackpot went unclaimed Tuesday night. At $667 million, it was already the largest jackpot in Mega Millions history, and now it's expected to climb to $868 million for Friday night's drawing. But someone who bought a ticket in San Francisco for Tuesday's drawing is holding an amazing consolation prize - a ticket worth $1,926,474.

The ticket was bought at the Safeway store at 15 Marina Blvd. It matched the first five numbers, but missed the Mega ball. The winning numbers are: 3, 45, 49, 61, 69 and the Mega number is 9. ABC7 reports that the winner works in the bakery department at the store. Manager Lea Maxwell siad, "All the employees gathered to take photos of him and congratulate him. Then we snuck him out the back door. He didn't want to speak to the press. He was extremely nervous and he's shy, he didn't want to do it."

There were eight other tickets sold with five numbers but missing the Mega number, two sold in Pennsylvania and one each in Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, New Jersey, New York and Texas. They are each worth $1 million, except for the one sold in Texas, where the player purchased the Megaplier option which made the ticket worth $5 million, the Multi-State Lottery Association, which conducts the game, announced. California law requires major payoffs of lottery games to be paid on a pari-mutuel basis, which explains why the ticket sold in San Francisco is worth nearly $2 million while the same ticket in other states is worth $1 million.

The largest U.S. lottery jackpot was $1.586 billion for the Jan. 13, 2016 Powerball drawing. Friday night's Mega Millions jackpot of $868 million will far surpass previous records for this game. The top Mega Millions jackpots are:

1. $656 million -- 3/30/2012 -- 3 winners-IL, KS, MD
2. $648 million -- 12/17/2013 -- 2 winners-CA, GA
3. $543 million -- 7/24/2018 1 CA
4. $536 million -- 7/8/2016 -- 1 winner-IN
5. $533 million -- 3/30/2018 -- 1 winner-NJ

The winner has one year to claim their prize. If you are the winner, fill out your claim form and take it to a district office. The closest offices are in South San Francisco and Hayward:

• 2489 Industrial Parkway West
• Hayward, CA 94545
• (510) 670-4630

• 820 Dubuque Avenue
• South San Francisco, CA 94080
• (650) 875-2200

The odds of matching all five numbers and the Mega number is 1 in 302,575,350, according to the California Lottery. The overall chance of winning a prize is 1 in 24. The Mega Millions game is played in 44 states, the District of Columbia and U.S. Virgin Islands.

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Read more about the winning store on ABC7.

Also See:

• The 100 Best Places To Live In California Ranked 2018
• Please Don't Help My Kids

-Patch File Image by Alex Nguyen; City News Service contributed to this story