As we suspected, the peculiar story of the two tickets that snagged the Mega Millions jackpot at the end of last week continues to capture widespread attention. To recap, two tickets hit the Mega Millions jackpot on Friday night, and both were sold at the same California Lottery retail partner location: the Chevron station at 18081 Ventura Blvd in Encino (Los Angeles County).

Now, the organizer's website has revealed new details about this event and the Mega Millions representatives' response to it.

“While this is incredibly unsual and interesting, it’s not unheard of,” said Carolyn Becker, California Lottery spokesperson. “There are any number of explanations; perhaps one person wanted to try their luck on two different rows for whatever reason, or maybe a couple of buddies wanted to try their chances with the same exact numbers. We won’t know exactly how this happened until the prize is claimed.”

The California Lottery won’t reveal whether the ticket was purchased by the same player or by two players to protect the integrity of the security review process once there’s a prize claim. “That’s one of the questions our law enforcement team will ask anyone who comes forward,” Becker said. “Only legitimate winners know the answers to some of our most important questions during the standard vetting process; it’s one of the ways we determine that the person who claims the prize is, in fact, the rightful winner.”

While this has never happened in California for a Mega Millions jackpot before, there have been similar instances like this.

In December of 2020, the same 7-Eleven in Vallejo sold two winning tickets for SuperLotto Plus, both of which matched five numbers correctly to win a prize of more than $8,000. Those prizes were eventually claimed by two different players with the same last name.

There are also stories across the country of people playing the same numbers on different tickets and winning big. Here’s a media article about a Virgina player who bought 20 winning tickets with the same numbers. Similarly, another article shares the story of a Maryland player with 15 tickets that all hit the jackpot.