Wednesday 12 May 2010

Lottery winners: 266-million-dollar lottery win won't change us

A Los Angeles couple who hit the 266-million-dollar jackpot in a multi-state lottery said Thursday that the bumper payday would not change them.

Jacki and Gilbert Cisneros became California's newest millionaires on Tuesday when they struck paydirt in the Mega Millions Lottery after the prize total had rolled over to an eye-popping 266 million dollars.

The win instantly obliterated the couple's financial worries -- Gilbert Cisneros had recently lost his job -- and left them contemplating a life of almost unlimited luxury.

But the couple insisted Tuesday they are not planning a spending spree, with NBC television journalist Jacki Cisneros even revealing that she had no plans to give up her job.

"I don't think it's going to change us," Jacki Cisneros told NBC4. "You know, we'll buy a house, but doesn't everyone dream of buying a house? I don't want to get too carried away, you know?," she said, adding that she hopes to keep working at her current job.

"I've worked since I was 14," she said. "So the idea of not working is just, it's a foreign concept for me.

"Even growing up, my grandparents instilled a really strong work ethic with my family, so the idea of not working just seems weird to me."

The odds of matching the winning numbers were 1 in 175,711,536, according to the Mega Millions website.