One of the winners in Tuesday’s Mega Millions lottery is a 56-year-old Georgia mom who played her family’s birthdays along with her lucky number 7 to score half of the $648 million jackpot.
Ira Curry bought the winning ticket at an Atlanta-area newsstand and chose to take the lump sum of about $120 million after taxes.
“It’s unreal,” Curry, an underwriter at an insurance company, told lottery officials. “It’s like I’m still dreaming.”
She said she was driving to work on Wednesday when she heard on the radio that her lucky number 7 was the Mega Ball, along with the winning numbers of 8, 14, 17, 20 and 39.
Curry then called her daughter to check the ticket and she and her family rushed to lottery headquarters to claim the prize.
Curry, who lives in the Atlanta suburb of Stone Mountain, won half of the second-largest jackpot in US history.
The other winning ticket was bought in a San Jose, Calif., gift shop. That lucky buyer has yet to claim the prize.