Regular customer bought $8 million lottery ticket at Daly City market, employees say

Someone was especially thankful this Thanksgiving: He won $8 million in Wednesday's California SuperLotto Plus drawing.

The winning ticket came out of Manila Oriental Market at 950 King Drive, California Lottery officials said. The ticket was the only one to match the right numbers — 41, 22, 43, 44, 15 and the Mega 14.

No one had claimed the prize as of Monday — the earliest the winner could do so given that state lottery offices were closed for the long Thanksgiving weekend, SuperLotto spokesman Alex Traverso said.

But Manila Oriental workers described the new multimillionaire as an elderly Filipino man who is a regular customer at the market — although they didn't know his name.

"I sold him the ticket Wednesday," employee Ingrid Yau said of the man, who bought $5 worth of Quick Pick random numbers.

"Thanksgiving in the morning, he came here and said, 'Thank you — I have money,'" Yau said. "He was very happy. I feel happy."

Stores that sell winning lottery tickets earn a small cut of the reward, and Manila Oriental Market will take in $40,000. This is the third time in as many years that the market has drawn a big lottery winner, store manager Chu Chu Lie said. The previous winners each took home a few hundred thousand dollars.

Last year, South San Francisco resident Lourdes Salinas drew the winning $38.5 million Mega Millions lottery ticket at the Pak N Save store in that city.