Massoud Ardalan came forward to say he is the person who bought the winning SuperLotto Plus ticket from a San Francisco Bay Area gas station this week.
He credits his love of pumpkin seeds for his $33 million win.
Ardalan said he started going to the Heather Farm Shell station in Walnut Creek regularly for gas in part because it was one of the few places he could find his favorite snack.
During a regular stop this week he said he realized he was short on cash.
He only had $15. That was enough for $10 in gas and $5 in tickets. The choice to get the tickets and not the seeds paid off, because one of those five tickets held the winning numbers.
Ardalan said he got a phone message from a friend Thursday telling him to check his tickets.
He says he plans to start his own business, possibly in the field of reprographics. He worked in that field for the past 16 years, but was laid off in November. He said the new business would allow him to help both himself and his laid off friends get back to work.
“That’s a lot of money, we can do a lot of things, buy a lot of pumpkin seeds! Maybe buy a pumpkin seed factory,” he said.
