The Mega Millions jackpot administrators announce that the winning ticket was purchased in Maine, winner’s identity has not yet been made public.
The identity of the winner has not yet been disclosed, but the jackpot’s administrators announced on Saturday that the winning ticket was purchased in Maine.
Mega Millions Jackpot Winner
The $2 winning lottery ticket was purchased at Hometown Gas & Grill, a convenience store in Lebanon. Friday evening’s winning combination of six numbers was 30, 43, 45, 46, 61, and the gold Mega Ball 14.
The winner beat the odds of 1 in 302,6 million, resulting in three months without a jackpot winner. First, he determined that he had not purchased the winning lottery ticket.
To get the whole $1.35 billion, the winner must accept a 29-year annuity with monthly payments. The majority of jackpot winners choose the cash option, which for Friday night’s drawing was around $724,600,000.
The jackpot had not been won since October 14, when winning tickets in California and Florida split a $502 million payout. It is the second-largest jackpot in the game’s 20-year history, trailing only the $1.537 billion won in South Carolina in October 2018.
In addition to the ticket that won the jackpot, fourteen other tickets matched all five numbers to win the $1 million second-tier prize.
Four were sold in the state of New York, two in the state of California, and one each in the states of Florida, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Texas.
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Governor Chris Sununu Congrats The Lucky Winner
Meanwhile, Chris Sununu, the governor of New Hampshire, took the opportunity to poke fun at Janet Mills, the governor of Maine, by congratulating her on her paycheck while assuring his state’s residents that there will be no income tax.
James Myall, an economist at the Maine Center for Economic Policy, estimated on Twitter that the $52 million in tax revenue would cover the cost of approximately two years of free school meals for Maine students.
By choosing to receive their winnings as a lump payment, winners take a financial cost, in this case from $1.35 billion to $724.6 million. Additionally, federal taxes reduce the prize to $455,8 million.
However, the winner would have been better off purchasing the ticket in Maine, 35 miles away, than in Massachusetts, where hefty taxes would have cut profits to approximately $390 million.
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