A single ticket purchased in a Chicago suburb beat the odds to win a $1.337 million Mega Millions jackpot.
According to megamillions.com, there was a jackpot winning ticket in Friday night’s drawing and it was purchased at a Speedway gas station and convenience store in Des Plaines.
The winning numbers were: 13-36-45-57-67, Mega Ball: 14. “We are delighted to have witnessed one of the biggest jackpot wins in Mega Millions history,” Pat McDonald, Director of the Ohio Lottery, current chief executive officer of the Mega Millions Consortium, said in a statement on the lottery’s website. “We can’t wait to find out who won and look forward to congratulating the winner soon!”
The jackpot was the third largest lottery prize in the country. It grew so big because no one had matched the game’s six selected numbers since April 15th. That’s 29 consecutive draws without a prize winner.
Lottery officials had estimated the winning prize at $1.28 billion, but on Saturday revised the figure to $1.337 billion. The total prize is for winners who choose the annuity option, paid annually for 29 years. Most winners go for the cash option, which for Friday night’s drawing was about $780.5 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 also a big winner; he will get half a million dollars just for selling the ticket. An employee at the Speedway store who answered the phone but declined to give his name said the store had not received official notification that it was selling the winning ticket and learned of it from reporters who sought comment.
Customers line up to buy items at the Speedway gas station in Des Plaines, Illinois, where the winning Mega Millions lottery ticket was sold, Saturday, July 30, 2022. A ticket holder in the state won the .337 billion Mega Millions jackpot. of a ticket bought in the store. (AP)
Mega Millions is played in 45 states as well as Washington, DC and the US Virgin Islands. The game is coordinated by state lotteries.
Illinois is among the states where winners of more than $250,000 can choose not to reveal their names, and Illinois Lottery spokeswoman Emilia Mazur said the vast majority of those winners do.
Even lottery officials may not know for a while who won because winners don’t have to come forward immediately. And the winning ticket may have been bought by a group of people. “We won’t know if it’s an individual or a lottery group until the winner comes forward to claim their prize,” said National Mega Millions spokeswoman Danielle Frizzi-Babb.
As of Saturday afternoon, no winner had emerged, according to Mazur.
Emily Irwin, managing director of advisory and planning at Wells Fargo’s Wealth & Investment Management, said Friday that the winner should consider keeping a low profile and resist making a big spending spree that everyone knows the winner can’t afford. to allow. “This is not the time to start calling everyone you know, saying, ‘Hey, I have a big secret.’ Can you stay?’” Irwin said.
This is necessary to avoid being inundated with requests for money. “There are scammers and others who follow the big winners,” he said, admitting that sudden wealth can put a lottery winner in physical danger. “Privacy equals security,” he said.
One thing the winner must do right away is sign the ticket. That’s because if the ticket hasn’t been signed, it’s not really yours. If the winner loses an unsigned ticket and someone else finds it and signs it, the ticket now belongs to them.
Irwin suggests one more step to surviving a legal battle over property. “Take a Polaroid holding it and (put) it in a safe or some other safe place,” he said.
Pratik Patel, head of Family Wealth Strategies at BMO Family Office in Chicago, said the winner should work with a financial planner to plan for their future. “I would do a Monte Carlo simulation of the market,” Patel said, explaining that it’s an analysis of what a winner’s annual income could be and what the income of various investments could be. “What you’re doing is using analytics to inform your spending.”
Frizzi-Babb agrees that talking to a financial planner is a good idea. “I would suggest doing that before you set foot in a lottery office,” he said.
An expert who has worked with past lottery winners says winners should avoid going to the lottery office, instead sending a lawyer or financial advisor to preserve their anonymity, if lottery officials they allow
“There are going to be people who will go out of their way to find out who the winner is,” said Kim Kamin, who was a trusts and estates attorney for 17 years and now teaches estate planning at Northwestern University Law School. “There will be many eyes watching.”
There’s also a question no one wants to answer at that particular moment: what happens to money when you die?
Irwin said don’t leave this unanswered; you must take steps to ensure that most of your estate goes to your beneficiaries rather than the government.
“You need a manager who specializes in that and understands that world,” Patel said. “Someone making $60,000 a year may need a certain type of professional manager and may want to switch to someone who is ultra-wealthy.”
Whatever the winner does, it’s important to do it slowly. “You can absolutely enjoy yourself, but let’s be smart about it,” Patel said. “It’s a lot of money, but until you figure out what you can afford, there are still limitations.”
For example, he said, consider renting a private jet before taking the plunge and buying one. “You might be interested in owning your favorite basketball team,” he warned, “but that might not be a good idea if it’s using up all your money.”