Just after 7 a.m. Wednesday morning there was a small celebration going on inside the 7-Eleven store across the street from Fresno State. The clerks were shaking the hands with a man and smiling. A 7-Eleven official confirmed that man was the winner of the $30.5 million MEGA Millions jackpot.
As quickly as he came in to get his usual Red Bull drink, he was out and on his way to work.
Action News spoke with him for a quick second and he was still in shock. He said his name was Alex and that he worked at Fresno State on the field. When asked when he was going to cash in the winning ticket, he laughed, and left.
Store clerks say Alex is a regular customer and a very nice man. Local lottery officials say this $30-million dollar win is exciting for everyone.
"Not too often we get a big winner. Because we're talking about 38 different states that are in the pool for the MEGA Millions so it's yeah it's kind of a big deal for California to have a big winner," said California State Lottery Fresno supervisor Henry Hernandez.
Wednesday morning, California Lottery officials put up the store's first ever "millionaires made here" sign. With a matching ticket, that means the store also wins as well -- and in fact, this is the store's first big win.
The franchisee will receive half a percent of the winner's earnings, which amounts to a little more than $152-thousand. As of late Wednesday morning, the winner had not stopped by the local California Lottery office to cash in his ticket.
The total MEGA Millions jackpot was $61-million dollars. Two people in the country had those magic MEGA Million numbers. Besides Fresno, the other winning ticket was sold in Massachusetts.
