Stefano’s Employees Share $300K California Lottery Win

San Rafael resident Luiz Arias is having arthroscopic knee surgery Thursday morning.

He just landed a big chunk of cash to help pay for the weeks of physical therapy he’ll need after surgery.

Arias and 11 other employees at  bought that matched five of the six numbers in Tuesday night’s Mega Millions drawing. Each of those winning tickets is worth $308,573.

“There was a lot of partying over here last night,” Arias said. “We’re thrilled. I never win anything!”

The employees, all of whom were born in Brazil, work at one of Stefano's locations in Mill Valley, Corte Madera and Novato, as well Rocco's Pizza in Mill Valley, all of which are owned by Bob Valentino.

The employees had pooled together $1,200 to buy 1,200 $1 tickets to increase their odds of winning in the Mega Millions drawing. To increase their probability of winning even more, they scattered all over Marin to buy the tickets, with Greenbrae resident and brand new father Luciano Aruda stopping at Jolly King Liquors in Mill Valley, where he had to pick up a check as part of his second job as a New York Times delivery man. Aruda bought 250 tickets, Arias said.

Three of the 11 employees -  Arias, Aruda and Corte Madera resident Giovane Souza – went to the California Lottery’s district office in San Francisco Wednesday afternoon to claim their prize - $308,573, or approximately $21,000 for each employee after taxes, according to Arias.

The employees kept the tickets at Stefano’s and got together Tuesday evening after the drawing to go through them. They didn’t have to look very hard – the third of the 1,200 tickets they looked at had five matching numbers, Arias said.

“It was amazing,” he said. “This money will be well spent.”

Because no ticket matched all six numbers in Tuesday night's drawing, the jackpot in Friday's drawing has reached approximately $540 million.

In addition to the ticket sold at Jolly King, the other winning tickets were sold in Redding, San Bernardino, Sacramento, Placentia, Imperial Beach, Corona, Santa Monica and Fontana.

Jolly King also sold another winning ticket, this one worth $13,000, to an employee pool at the Alice 97.3 radio station in San Francisco that included Mill Valley resident and "Sarah and Vinnie" host Sarah Clark.