‘Someone is going to win.’ Mega Millions jackpot grows past $1 billion mark for third time
Could lottery luck strike twice for a South Carolina resident?
Friday’s draw will tell when the Mega Millions pot reaches over $1 billion. If someone wins, it would be the third-largest jackpot in Mega Millions’ 20-year history.
The largest Mega Millions jackpot — $1.537 billion — was won Oct. 23, 2018, on a ticket sold in Simpsonville at the KC Mart. The winner chose to remain anonymous. All that is known is they chose the cash option and collected $877 million.
To date, it is the largest jackpot won by a single winner.
KC Mart earned $50,000 for selling the ticket.
The largest overall jackpot — $1.586 billion on Powerball — was won Jan. 13, 2016, on tickets sold in California, Florida and Tennessee.
Friday’s Mega Millions drawing represents the third time the jackpot surpassed $1 billion. The second-largest win was just short of the amount of Friday’s jackpot and was won in Michigan on Jan. 22, 2021.
The last time Mega Millions was won was April 19, and Friday’s drawing will be the 30th of this run, said Julie Huffman, a South Carolina lottery spokesperson.
Huffman said she did not know how many tickets had been sold to date, but she said sales were robust.
A news release from Mega Millions said unprecedented traffic after the drawing Tuesday caused the website to go down.
“More than any in the history of megamillions.com,” the release said.
The news release said the number of winning tickets at all other prize levels increased to 6,775,330.
Nine tickets matched the five white balls, the second prize. Someone in Ohio won $3 million due to selecting the Megaplier. A prize of $1 million went to two in New Jersey and New York and one each in California, Florida, Illinois and Ohio.
Ohio Lottery Director Pat McDonald, the current lead director of the Mega Millions Consortium, said in a news release, “Seeing the jackpot build over a period of months and reaching the billion-dollar mark is truly breathtaking.”
Then McDonald added, “Enjoy the ride. Someone is going to win.”