On July 29, 2022, a single player which purchased its Mega Millions ticket from a Speedway gas station and convenience store in Des Plaines (Illinois) scooped one of the biggest US lottery jackpots. 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.
This lucky player scooped Mega Millions second largest jackpot and became Illinois’ biggest lottery winner. The winning numbers were: 13-36-45-57-67 with the Mega Ball 14.
Pat McDonald, Ohio’s Lottery Director & current Lead Director for the Mega Millions Consortium, 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 winner of this record jackpot has not claimed his winnings yet but he has 12 months to come forward.
“We have not heard from the winner yet. We don’t know whether or not they even know that they won the prize, so I encourage everybody to check your ticket.” declared Harold Mays, director of the Illinois Lottery, in a press conference on July 30, 2022
Now he has to decide whether he wants to remain anonymous or not as the Illinois Lottery allows players that win over $250,000 to remain anonymous if they wish.
Here are 3 nice anecdotes about the July 29th draw:
- 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 will receive half a million dollars for selling that lucky ticket.