Someone in a Chicago suburb beat the odds and won the $1.337 billion Mega Millions jackpot.
According to megamillions.com, there was one jackpot-winning ticket in the draw Friday night, and it was bought at a Speedway gas station and convenience store in Des Plaines.
The winning numbers were: 13-36-45-57-67, Mega Ball: 14.
The final value based on actual sales was higher than the estimated $1.28 billion jackpot amount. It’s the second largest jackpot in the 20-year history of the Mega Millions game, topped only by the $1.537 billion prize won in October 2018 in South Carolina.
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“We are thrilled to have witnessed one of the biggest jackpot wins in Mega Millions history,” Ohio Lottery Director Pat McDonald, currently serving as Lead Director for the Mega Millions Consortium, said in a statement on the lottery’s website. “We’re eager to find out who won and look forward to congratulating the winner soon!”
The jackpot was the nation's third-largest lottery prize. It grew so large because no one had matched the game’s six selected numbers since April 15. That’s 29 consecutive draws without a jackpot winner.
The $1.337 billion prize is for winners who choose the annuity option, paid annually over 29 years. Most winners opt for the cash option, which for Friday night’s drawing was an estimated $747.2 million.
The odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 302.5 million.
According to the Illinois Lottery, the store that sold the ticket is a pretty big winner, too; it will receive half a million dollars just for selling the ticket. A clerk at the Speedway store who answered the phone but declined to give his name, said the store has not been notified officially that it sold the winning ticket and that he learned about it from reporters calling for comment.
Illinois is among the states where winners of more than $250,000 can choose to not reveal their names and Camelot Illinois spokeswoman Emilia Mazur said the vast majority of those winners do just that.
Even lottery officials may not know for a while who won because winners don't have to come forward straight away. And the winning ticket may have been bought by a group of people.
“We won’t know whether it’s an individual or its a lottery pool until the winner comes forward to claim their prize,” National Mega Millions spokeswoman Danielle Frizzi-Babb said.
Mega Millions is played in 45 states as well as Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The game is coordinated by state lotteries.
