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Frenzy in Twin Cities as Mega Millions reaches $1 billion

The Mega Millions jackpot has reached $1 billion, and people are clamoring to get tickets inside Twin Cities stores.

ST. PAUL - At the corner of Hamline and Randolph in St. Paul, a lot of people were seeing green.

At the appropriately-named Lucky's gas station, lottery sales tripled on Friday as the 10 p.m. Mega Millions drawing approached.

The jackpot has now reached $1 billion. This is serious business.

"Quite a bit of fever in the neighborhood," said Jerrold, the assistant manager who spent his afternoon serving customer after customer as they bought Mega Millions tickets. "In a little over three hours, must have had only two or three people that actually did not buy a lottery (ticket)."

The odds, of course, are not great: You have about a 1 in 302.5 million chance of winning the Mega Millions on Friday.

"If it does not go this weekend," Jerrold said, "we are thinking about putting more staff hours to handle it. Especially in the evening hours."

Big lottery payoffs are big business, apparently.

"The higher it gets up there," Jerrold said, "the more frantic it gets."

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