Locals Try Their Chance at $640 Million - Did You?

Updated at 8:33 p.m. March 30

Luis Miguel Gil was staring at a 12-hour overnight shift Friday evening, so he did what anybody might do before starting a 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. stint.

He bought a lottery ticket.

And the Concord resident wasn't the only one.

Thousands of Californians were snatching up tickets for Friday's Mega Millions drawing, where the jackpot reached a record $640 million.

Should a person get all five numbers and the mega number - 2, 4, 23, 38, 46 with a Mega Ball of 23 - he or she gets their choice of a one-time pre-tax payout of $462 million or $24 million every year for 26 years. The rest of the jackpot is given out in smaller prizes.

The odds of winning the big jackpot are estimated at 1 in 176 million. One statistican said a person who bought 50 tickets a year would win the jackpot, on average, every 68,000 years.

Those numerical obstacles didn't dissuade Gil and others from buying tickets anyway.

He was at the Shop N Go in the shopping center at the southeast corner of Ygnacio Valley Road and Clayton Road on Friday afternoon.

Gil purchased 15 tickets for $15. He got five Quick Picks and then played his usual 10 combination of numbers. He didn't tell us what numbers he played, so we don't know if he's a lucky winner. But we chatted with him earlier this afternoon to find out what he'd do with the money if he were to win.

Gil, who had his 12-year-old daughter and 8-year-old and 3-year-old sons with him, hasn't won any big money playing. But he still takes his chances every week.

The lottery hopeful said he doesn't really want the money for himself. Gil, who works the overnight shift at a South San Francisco bakery, said he would use a lottery jackpot for his children and for family back in Mexico; his local church, too.

Gil was typical of the customers pouring into the Shop N Go on Friday. Store owner Harry Dyal said they had sold 3,000 tickets between 6 a.m. and 2 p.m.

Dyal was working late with store manager Paul Singh, since he expected customers to try their luck up until the 7:45 p.m. deadline to buy tickets.

Most people bought Quick Picks, said Dyal, but others were filling out their forms with their favorite numbers.

He said most people don't buy any extra things when they come in for lottery tickets - but keeps in mind one-half of 1 percent of any big jackpot goes to the winning store.

"We're having fun with it," he said.

Did you try your luck? How many tickets did you buy? Tell us in the comments.