A single winning ticket was sold for Tuesday night’s record estimated $1.58 billion Mega Millions jackpot, lottery officials said. It was purchased at a Publix supermarket in Neptune Beach, Florida. Neptune Beach is on the Atlantic coast, near Jacksonville.
What were the winning Mega Millions numbers?
The winning numbers were 13, 19, 20, 32, 33, and a Mega Ball of 14.
The holder or holders of that ticket have not yet been publicly identified.
The winner has the choice of taking an estimated lump sum payment of $783.3 million before taxes or going with the annuity option. That consists of an immediate payment followed by 29 annual payments that increase in value and eventually equal the full jackpot minus taxes.
The jackpot had been growing since it was last won in New York in mid-April. Since then, 31 drawings were held without anyone matching all six numbers. That changed in the 32nd.
Biggest lottery jackpots
Along with being the largest windfall in Mega Millions history, it was apparently the third biggest in U.S. lottery history.
In February, a winning ticket sold at a gas station near Los Angeles claimed a $2.04 billion Powerball jackpot, the largest in lottery history.
In January 2016, winning tickets were bought in California, Florida and Tennessee for a $1.586 billion Powerball pot of gold.
It was unclear whether that grand prize topped Tuesday night’s estimated $1.58 billion Mega Millions jackpot.
Tuesday’s Mega Millions jackpot was the second billion-dollar windfall up for grabs this summer. Last month, a Powerball player bought a winning ticket in Los Angeles for that game’s $1.08 billion jackpot.
The odds of winning the Mega Millions jackpot are about 1 in 302.58 million.
Mega Millions tickets, which are $2 each, are sold in all states except Alabama, Utah, Alaska, Hawaii and Nevada. They’re also sold in Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Drawings take place every Tuesday and Friday at 11 p.m. EDT.
–Additional reporting by Brian Dakss.
