Someone finally matched all six numbers on Friday and walked away with an estimated $1.35 billion Mega Millions prize, after three months of drawing without a winner.
The winning numbers drawn on Friday night were: 30, 43, 45, 46, 61 and Gold Mega Ball 14. Mega Millions reported on its website that there is only one person who bought the ticket
in Maine
.
Lottery officials did not immediately release information on the individual winner.
The jackpot had been rolling since it was last won on Oct. 14, when a $502 million prize was split between expired tickets in California and Florida.
The odds of winning it were just 1 in 302.6 million.
It marks the first time the state of Maine has achieved a Mega Millions jackpot, the lottery reported.
“We thank all of our retailers for their hard work during this spectacular run, and our customers for their enthusiasm and support,” said Ohio Lottery Director Pat McDonald, Principal Director of the Mega Millions Consortium.
[The 2022 tax return begins this January 23: how to obtain tax credits]
The $1.35 billion grand prize can be received in the form of annual payments
for 29 years
.
Even though
winners
almost always choose the cash option
, which for Friday night's drawing was estimated at $724.6 million.
People wait in line to play for the jackpot in California.
John Locher/AP
The Mega Millions record jackpot remains $1.537 billion, won on a single ticket in South Carolina on October 23, 2018.
The other raffle winners
This run of 26 jackpot drawings ends with 7,072,832 winning tickets across all nine prize levels in the January 13 drawing, including the jackpot ticket.
It was further reported that
fourteen tickets matched all five white balls
to win the game's second-tier prize of $1 million.
Four were sold in New York, two in California, and one each in Florida, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Texas.
Kelvin and Elías have good plans to invest the prize they won at Exatlón USA.
Jan 5, 202301:39
For matching four white balls plus the Mega Ball, 164 tickets have a third-tier win.
Of those, 27 included the optional Megaplier (available in most states with an additional $1 purchase), which went 2X on Friday night;
They are worth $20,000 each.
The remaining 137 second-tier winning tickets take home the standard prize of $10,000.
Mega Millions is played in 45 states, as well as Washington, DC, and the US Virgin Islands. The site also says that the next big prize will be $20 million and the cash option will be $10.7 million, indicating that there was an estimated prize winner of $1.35 billion.
