Mega Millions player wins $560M jackpot — ending 3-month drought
Somebody’s feeling like a million bucks!
A Mega Millions player in Illinois won the jackpot worth $560 million on Tuesday night, ending a drought lasting just over three months.
The winning numbers were 19, 37, 40, 63, 69, and the gold Mega ball 17.
It was the ninth-largest jackpot prize in the game’s history.
The unidentified, single ticketholder purchased their ticket online using the state’s lottery website.
The lucky winner can claim the $560 million in annual payouts or choose the one-time cash payout of $264.0 million.
Tuesday night’s historic win marked the first time a jackpot-winning ticket was sold online, according to the lottery’s website.
It was just the 14th time someone in the Prairie State won at least a share of the Mega Millions jackpot.
New York holds the record of 43 jackpots won, according to the blog jackpocket.com.
Illinois state lottery rules allow winners of prizes larger than $250,000 to request their names and their municipality of residence be kept confidential when completing a winner claim form.
Tuesday’s late-night drawing also saw two ticketholders, one in California and one in Maryland, win $1 million each for matching all five white balls.
The last time an Illinois player won the Mega Millions grand prize was when an anonymous trust claimed the $1.337 billion jackpot-winning ticket purchased in Des Plaines on July 29, 2022.
It is the second time the Mega Millions jackpot ballooned past $500 million since last summer.
Mega Millions players have a 1 in 302,575,350 chance of winning the jackpot in any drawing.
It is also the first time the grand prize was won since March 26, when a lucky New Jersey player purchased a ticket worth $1.13 billion, a total of 20 drawings between jackpot winners.
The March jackpot win was the fifth-largest in the game’s history.
The life-changing ticket was sold at ShopRite Liquor on Route 66 in Neptune Township.
The New Jersey grocery store received a $30,000 bonus check for selling the winning ticket.
No winner has come forward to claim their prize, of either the $1.13 billion in annual installments over 30 years or a one-time lump sum estimated at $537.5 million.
Like in Illinois, the New Jersey lottery allows winners to remain anonymous and the prizes can be claimed up to a year after the drawing.
