Southern California may have a new lucky spot when it comes to buying lottery tickets.
A Chevron station in Encino, located at 18081 Ventura Boulevard, sold not one, but two winning tickets that matched all six numbers in Friday night’s drawing including the gold Mega Ball, according to a press release from lottery officials.
The prize had grown to $394 million – which equates to about $188.6 million in cash – since it was last won in Texas by a South Dakota-based trust on Oct. 6, Mega Millions said.
In addition to the two grand prize winners in Encino, there were 715,952 winning tickets across all other prize tiers for Dec. 8’s drawing.
“Across all prize tiers, there were almost $10.5 million winning tickets during this 18-drawing jackpot run,” lottery officials said.
2023 has been considered “highly unusual” for Mega Millions, as it is the first time in a decade that ten jackpots have been won in the same calendar year.
The year started off with a bang; a Maine player won $1.348 billion on Jan. 13, and the new game record was set in August when someone in Florida won a whopping $1.6 billion dollars.
The Mega Millions jackpot for the next drawing – scheduled for Tuesday – now resets to its current starting value of $20 million, lottery officials said.
Tickets for the $2 game are sold in 45 states, Washington, D.C. and the U.S. Virgin Islands.