California’s Mega Millions Winner Comes Forward

Mega Millions winner Paul Horner showing reporters a few of his prized baby clothes from his massive collection.

San Jose, CA — This morning lottery officials were pleased to announce that the second winner in Tuesday night’s Mega Millions has come forward. That lucky person is 35-year-old Paul Horner from San Jose, California. He is the winner of the $636 million jackpot, the second largest in history. Mr. Horner won by correctly matching all five numbers including the Mega Ball.

Horner, who is single with no children, told reporters about his hobby that he plans to expand with his new found wealth. “I like collecting baby clothes or little people clothes. If the shirt is tiny I just really love it, the tinier the better,” Horner said. “Now that I have all this money I know I’m going to be buying so many really small wardrobes. I’ll probably go on a lot of little clothes shopping sprees. There’s a tiny person clothes store right by my house, I’ll be there for sure.” Horner continued, “I think I’m going to use the rest the money to try and get Ted Cruz elected President in 2016. I don’t really follow politics, I just think he has an amazing smirk and could share that wonderful facial feature with the rest of the country.”

Two tickets matched the six numbers needed to win Tuesday’s Mega Millions jackpot.

Horner purchased his winning ticket at Jennifer’s Gifts & Kids Wear, in San Jose, California. The other ticket was sold in Atlanta, Georgia. The two winners will split the second-largest US lottery jackpot on record – leaving them with $328 million each in winnings.

The owner of the store that sold the winning ticket will receive a $1 million bonus, according to San Jose lottery officials.

Mega Millions changed its rules in October to help increase the jackpots by lowering the odds of winning the top prize. Originally, customers chose five numbers from 1-56 and one number from 1-46. The new structure has customers choosing five numbers from 1-75 and one number from 1-15. That sliced the odds of winning from 1 in 176 million to 1 in 259 million.

Tuesday’s drawing aside, Mega Millions jackpots are likely to continue swelling after lottery officials boosted their potential payouts.

The jackpot started at $12 million October 4th.

By last week, it was up to $425 million, then $586 million on Monday before being raised to $636 million Tuesday morning.

On Wednesday in Stone Mountain, Georgia, Ira Curry came forward as the other Mega Millions winner.

Paul Horner showing reporters the winning ticket.

Lottery officials are still not sure what to make of the winner in San Jose who matched all six numbers correctly. “He’s quite an odd character”, said lottery official Tim Parkos. “I’m kind of sad that this thing is over. That jackpot was growing into something really amazing. With all of that money you could feed most of the world’s starving children, or provide clean drinking water in a third world country. I’m pretty sure there is no god when a guy like Paul Horner becomes the winner of something this special. Hopefully the winner in Georgia will put the money to better use.”

Horner told CNN about his plans for the future. “This money is definitely going to change my life forever,” Horner said. “I like to try on my little clothing but unfortunately it never fits because I’m too big. But now I have all this money and can fix that problem.” Horner continued, “There’s an experimental surgery they just started doing in Mexico that allows humans to be smaller, like a lot smaller. It’s an extremely dangerous procedure but I think the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages. You gotta live your dreams, ya’ know. If you don’t live them, somebody else will.”

The winning numbers in Tuesday’s drawing were 8, 14, 17, 20, 39 and the mega ball was 7. The odds of winning Tuesday’s Mega Millions drawing were 1 in 259 million. Mega Millions is played in 43 states, the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Tuesday’s jackpot was just $20 million short of the $656 million U.S. record set in the March 2012 drawing.

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