The person who beat the odds and matched all six numbers chosen in the December Mega Millions game was named the winner of the $1.2-billion jackpot on Monday.
California lottery officials, who are required by state law to make the winners public, said the winner was Rosemary Casarotti. She bought the winning ticket at Sunshine Food and Gas at 3505 Rhonda Road in Cottonwood on December 27.
The draw didn’t give any information about Casarotti’s life.
It’s made up of the numbers 3, 7, 37, 49, 55, and the Mega number 6, along with the 3x “MegaPlier.”
Casarotti chose not to be at the announcement on Monday. She picked to receive her prize all at once, which is more than $570 million.
So far, the lottery says this was California’s biggest Mega Millions prize ever. There was a 1 in 302.5 million chance of drawing all five winning numbers and the Mega number.
The jackpot had only been won three times in 2024 before the December win. This was the fewest wins in a single year since the game began in 2002.
It had been building since September 10, when a player won a $ 810 million prize from a ticket bought at a Texas gas stop.
The last six jackpots worth $6 billion or more were won in different states: South Carolina in 2018, Michigan in 2021, Illinois in 2022, Maine and Florida in 2023, and New Jersey in March. No other state had a prize bigger than $1.6 billion, which was won in Florida in 2023.
