Winning tickets in the $640 million Mega Millions lottery were sold in Maryland, Illinois and Kansas, lottery officials confirmed Saturday.
One lucky ticket was bought at a 7-Eleven store in Milford Mill, about 11 miles (18 kilometers) outside Baltimore at 7.15pm local time Friday and was a single quick pick ticket, FOX News Channel reported.
The lucky customer bought just one ticket and did not purchase anything else.
Maryland lottery director Stephen Martino told FOX that he was looking forward to meeting the winner and said that the $640 million jackpot figure was just a projection and could end up even higher.
LIST OF NY STORES WHERE SECOND-PRIZE WINNING TICKETS SOLD
“This is truly remarkable and historic,” Maryland Lottery Director Stephen Martino said in a statement. “We can’t wait to greet the winner of this world-record setting jackpot.”
Today television cameras were descending on the 7-Eleven in Baltimore County where the state’s winning ticket was purchased. The harried manager could only repeatedly say “No interviews” to the reporters pressing for details, and customers pushed through the media crush for their morning coffee.
Maryland does not require lottery winners to be identified; the Mega Millions winner can claim the prize anonymously. The store will receive a $100,000 bonus for selling the winning ticket, which was purchased Friday night.
Another winning ticket was sold in the city of Red Bud, in southern Illinois, near St. Louis.
“And we have a winner!!” the Illinois Lottery tweeted Saturday. “A Grand Prize #MegaMillions ticket was sold at Red Bud Motomart 900 S Main St, Red Bud! Two other winners in KS & MD.”
“This is very exciting, people are extremely happy, and of course everybody wants to know who it is,” Denise Metzger, manager of the Motomart where the winning ticket was sold, said Saturday morning. “Hopefully I sold that ticket to someone who comes in every single morning.”
The Illinois winner used a quick pick to select the numbers, according to Mike Lang, spokesman for the Illinois Lottery.
The third winning ticket was purchased in northeast Kansas, but no other information would be released by the Kansas Lottery until the winner comes forward, spokeswoman Cara S. Sloan-Ramos said in an email.
No winner had contacted the agency by Saturday morning, Kansas Lottery Director Dennis Wilson said. “We sure want to meet the winner, but we want to tell them, sign the back of the ticket and secure it,” he said.
Kansas law also allows lottery winners to remain anonymous, though lottery winners in Illinois are identified.
Lang said each winning ticket was expected to be worth more than $213 million before taxes.
The winning numbers in Friday night’s drawing were 02-04-23-38-46, and the Mega Ball 23.
Carole Everett, director of communications for the Maryland Lottery, said the last time a ticket from the state won a major national jackpot was 2008 when a ticket sold for $24 million.
“We’re thrilled,” she said. “We’re due and excited.”
The estimated jackpot dwarfs the previous $390 million record, which was split in 2007 by two winners who bought tickets in Georgia and New Jersey.
Americans spent nearly $1.5 billion for a chance to hit the jackpot, which amounts to a $462 million lump sum and around $347 million after federal tax withholding. With the jackpot odds at 1 in 176 million, it would cost $176 million to buy up every combination. Under that scenario, the strategy would win $171 million less if your state also withholds taxes.
From coast to coast, people stood in line at retail stores Friday for one last chance at striking it rich.
Maribeth Ptak, 31, of Milwaukee, only buys Mega Millions when the jackpot is really big and she bought one on Friday at a Milwaukee grocery store. She said she’d use the money to pay off bills, including school loans, and then she’d donate a good portion to charity.
“I know the odds are really not in my favor, but why not,” she said.
Sawnya Castro, 31, of Dallas, bought $50 worth of tickets at a 7-Eleven. She figured she’d use the money to create a rescue society for Great Danes, fix up her grandmother’s house, and perhaps even buy a bigger one for herself.
“Not too big — I don’t want that. Too much house to keep with,” she said.
Willie Richards, who works for the U.S. Marshals Service at a federal courthouse in Atlanta, figured if there ever was a time to confront astronomical odds, it was when $640 million was at stake. He bought five tickets.
“When it gets as big as it is now, you’d be nuts not to play,” he said. “You have to take a chance on Lady Luck.”
A New York lottery spokeswoman was not able to say immediately after the 11 p.m drawing if there were any Empire State had any winners.
There were no lucky tickets sold in New Jersey, a lottery spokeswoman confirmed.
The Garden State did have five $250,000 winners.
A California lottery spokesman said the Golden State had 29 players who matched five of the six numbers.
Before the epic drawing, New Yorkers lined up yesterday to buy tickets at newsstands and lottery stores across the city. and the lines beefed up once office workers stepped out for their lunch breaks.
Bus driver Rocco Fortunato stood outside a lotto store at the Port Authority and said he was buying a second batch of tickets.
“Fifty of us pooled tickets at $5 each,” he said of his co-workers at New Jersey Transit.
Mayor Bloomberg yesterday said he wasn’t likely to join the hordes swamping lottery sellers in hopes of snagging a winning ticket.
Then again, why would he care about millions when he’s worth $22 billion?
“The chances of me getting hit by lighting are greater than [winning],” Bloomberg chuckled on his weekly WOR radio show.
The practical-minded mayor said he isn’t much of a fan of gambling of any sort.
“My view on gambling is, if you want to do it understand that legally the state is going to take 15 percent every time you roll the dice, ask for another card at a blackjack hand, buy a lottery ticket.”
Americans were expected to have spent $1.46 billion on Mega Millions tickets by yesterday.
Among those hopefuls was lottery louse Americo Lopes.
The New Jersey hardhat — who was recently forced to pay five former co-workers their fair share of a $24 million jackpot after he tried to keep an office jackpot for himsef — thought he’d try his sorry luck by buying $6 worth of tickets for last night’s drawing.
“He was here [yesterday] morning” buying tickets, said a clerk at the Maggie Mart in Elizabeth, NJ, where Lopes bought the winning $24 million ticket he tried to claim for himself.
He could use the dough.
Lopes had planned to buy a $1.45 million house in Boonton, NJ. and is now in a legal battle over allegedly pulling out of a contract to purchase the home.
With AP and NewsCore
Additional reporting by Ikimulisa Livingston, Pedro Oliveira Jr. and Riyad Hasan