A US man who dug a handful of old lottery tickets out of his cookie jar was shocked to find out one of them was worth $4.85 million, officials said.

Ricardo Cerezo's wife asked him to take the 11 lotto tickets that had been sitting around the house to the store to check if any of them were winners.

The machine in the shop told him to file a claim on one of them, but he was only expecting to win a few hundred dollars.

"I can't believe I had $4.85 million in a cookie jar for over three months!" Cerezo said after a receiving a ceremonial check on Wednesday in Geneva, Illinois. "I'm awestruck, this is unbelievable!"

Asked by lottery officials if he had any advice for other players, Cerezo said "check your old tickets!"