Someone’s life just changed — in about a billion different ways.
A Maine resident purchased the winning ticket ahead of Friday $1.35 billion Mega Millions jackpot drawing — the second-largest in the game’s history, according to the lottery’s website.
The lotto winner matched all six numbers in the game, which hasn’t crowned a jackpot winner since Oct. 14. The numbers were 30, 43, 45, 46, 61, and Mega Ball 14.
It was a lucky Friday the 13th for one player who beat the long odds — 1 in 302.6 million.
The winner has not been publicly identified. Some state lottery officials do not identify winners out of concern for their privacy and security.
With no winner earlier this week, Friday’s jackpot grew to surpass the $1.35 billion cash value for the July 2022 winner. It is still eclipsed by the $1.53 billion won in October 2018.
The largest lottery jackpot paid in the U.S. was the result of a Powerball draw in November worth a cash value of $2.04 billion.
Friday’s winner can choose between accepting 30 annuity payments worth the $1.35 billion cash value of the jackpot or an immediate payment of $724.6 million.
The “lump sum” option comes with 24% automatically withheld by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, with more of it possibly owed in taxes at year’s end depending on a winner’s filing status and claims, to personal finance and tax advice platform Kiplinger.
The jackpot now shrinks, with a pot of $20 million for the next drawing, on Tuesday night.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
