Lottery ticket bought at Florida Publix wins big prize in Christmas Eve drawing

No disrespect to Santa, but it was the Florida Lottery that delivered big for one particular lottery player on Christmas.

A winner hasn’t yet come forward, but their $1 Fantasy 5 ticket from Publix paid off with a prize of $127,501.45.

The drawing was held at 11:15 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 24 and the winning numbers were 6-16-19-22-32, lottery officials said.

It’s entirely possible the winner may not yet know they got lucky, with the distraction of Christmas Day festivities.

He or she has 180 days to snap out of it and claim the cash before the ticket is considered expired. A prize that big means they must show up in person to collect it, lottery officials say.

The winning ticket was sold at a Publix store in Lady Lake, about a 125-mile drive southwest from Jacksonville.

Fantasy 5 players must select five numbers from 1 through 36 — or they let a machine do it at random for them, according to the game rules. There are two drawings daily.

Experts have calculated that there are 376,992 possible variations of numbers from 1 to 36, so winning a jackpot means beating odds of 1 in 376,992, lottery officials say.

This story was originally published December 26, 2024 at 11:16 AM with the headline "Lottery ticket bought at Florida Publix wins big prize in Christmas Eve drawing."