On July 29, 2022, a single winning Mega Millions ticket from a Speedway gas station and convenience store in Des Plaines (Illinois) brought one of the biggest US lottery jackpots to its owners. After 29 rollovers, this prize was primarily estimated at $1.28 Billion before finally being revised up to $1.337 Billion shortly after the draw took place.
These lucky player which had agreed to share the prize if they would win, scooped Mega Millions second largest jackpot and became Illinois’ biggest lottery winners. The winning numbers were: 13-36-45-57-67 with the Mega Ball 14.
Pat McDonald, Ohio’s Lottery Director & Lead Director for the Mega Millions Consortium, initially declared: “We are thrilled to have witnessed one of the biggest jackpot wins in Mega Millions history. We’re eager to find out who won and look forward to congratulating the winner soon!”.
The Mega Millions winners of this record jackpot came forward to claim their winnings approximately 8 weeks after the draw took place. They chose the Cash option and got to split an amazing US$ 780.5 Million jackpot. They also decided to remain anonymous (the Illinois Lottery allows players that win over $250,000 to remain anonymous).
Here are a few nice anecdotes about the July 29th, 2022 draw:
- This is the largest Mega Millions syndicate win to this date, the largest lottery win in Illinois but also the third-largest lottery win in US!
- This draw made 14,391,740 winners (from all prize tiers) including 26 second prize winners. Out of those 26 winners, 6 had selected the Megaplier option and therefore received $2 Million instead of $1 Million.
- The Speedway store where the winning ticket was sold had apparently not been officially notified that it sold the winning ticket that reporters were already calling in for comments. The store received half a million dollars for selling that lucky ticket.
