Organizers say the single winning ticket was sold in rural Maine.
A single lottery ticket holder in the United States has won $1.35 billion in the Mega Millions jackpot.
The identity of the winner has not yet been publicly released, but jackpot organizers said Saturday that the winning ticket was sold in northeastern Maine.
The winning ticket, which cost $2, was purchased at the Hometown Gas & Grill supermarket in the city of Lebanon.
“Congratulations to the Maine State Lottery on just winning their first-ever Mega Millions jackpot,” Ohio Lottery Director Pat McDonald, Lead Director of the Mega Millions Consortium, said in a statement. “This is the fourth billion dollar jackpot in Mega Millions history.”
The lucky six number combination drawn late Friday night was: 30, 43, 45, 46, 61 and golden Mega Ball 14.
The winner overcame the high odds of 1 in 302.6 million, resulting in three month draws with no claim to the jackpot.
“Our small town gas station was pretty busy this morning, I can tell you that,” said Fred Cotreau, owner of Hometown Gas & Grill.
The first thing he did was check if he had bought the winning ticket, which he hadn’t.
“Hopefully one of the residents and one of the regular customers is the winner,” Cotreau said. “It’s exciting to have sold it, but for a single winner it’s just more exciting and I really hope someone in town is.”
To claim the full $1.35 billion, the winner would have to take the money in the form of an annuity with annual payments over 29 years.
Most jackpot recipients prefer the discounted but quicker cash option, which was estimated at $724.6 million for Friday night’s drawing.
The jackpot has been rolling since it was last won on October 14, when a $502 million prize was shared between California and Florida ticket winners.
It’s the second largest in the game’s 20-year history, surpassed only by the $1.537 billion won in South Carolina in October 2018.
In addition to the jackpot winner ticket, 14 tickets matched all five numbers to win the game’s second-tier prize of $1 million.
Four were sold in New York, two in California, and one each in Florida, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Texas.
Half of the proceeds from the sale of each Mega Millions ticket stays in the state where the ticket was sold where the money supports lottery recipients such as United Kingdom. B. education or pensions of public employees and dealer commissions.
Cotreau, the owner of Hometown Gas & Grill, gets a significant bonus for the ticket.
“I don’t know yet, but I’ll call my lottery agent first thing Monday morning to find out.”