By Todd Northrop
One lucky Illinois lottery player is a whole lot happier today, after they won a Mega Millions jackpot worth an estimated $260 million Tuesday night.
It's the fourth time the Mega Millions jackpot has been won this year. Another Illinois player took home $265 million on January 16, and New Yorkers claimed back-to-back jackpots on February 27 ($127 million) and March 24 ($59 million).
Last night's jackpot win is the second-largest prize in Illinois Lottery history, and the ninth Mega Millions jackpot won by an Illinois player since Mega Millions began in 2002.
The lucky person, who has not yet claimed the prize, is the second Mega Millions jackpot winner from Illinois this year. The last jackpot was won by a self-proclaimed "regular Joe", who played a Quick Pick. (See Illinois man claims $265 million Mega Millions lottery jackpot, Lottery Post, Feb. 24, 2015.)
The winning numbers drawn Tuesday were 2, 9, 11, 22, and 23 with Mega Ball number 12. The Megaplier was 4.
In the same drawing, the wealth was really spread around, as a total of 14 lucky players matched the first 5 numbers for a $1,000,000 prize: 1 from California, 1 from Georgia, 1 from Kentucky, 1 from Minnesota, 1 from New Jersey, 2 from New York, 1 from North Carolina, 1 from Pennsylvania, 1 from Texas, 3 from Virginia, and 1 from Washington.
Sadly, none of those 14 players added the Megaplier for an extra $1, which would have boosted their win to a whopping $4 million cash. Still, $1 million is no chump change.
The California second-prize winner won $697,111 because by law California awards all lottery prizes using a pari-mutuel formula, a calculation based on the number of tickets sold and the number of people who won.
The $260 million jackpot started building from its $15 million starting point on March 27.
The jackpot has a cash value of $158.5 million, or $112.9 million after tax withholdings. The overall odds of winning the jackpot were 1 in 258,890,850.
The Illinois winner has a year to come forward.
Congrats to the winner. Hopefully it is someone who really needs it.
on a side note - "Lottery gods, how about the next big winner coming from Washington state!" Haha
Looks like someone may have been thinking about the tragic day of 9 11 and the winning numbers highest digit was 23.
An amazing win congrats to the lucky winner.
Congratulations to all the winners. 15 tickets with the same white balls-great.
Not surprising, I don't think there has ever been a loss in PB or MM history anytime extreme, extreme, extreme low numbers have been drawn.
I still want to see 1-2-3-4-5 & 1 drawn so we can see 100,000+ JP winners. LOL
That is a very odd pick of numbers, if you have an open mind, Go check out this video
You gotta be kidding, who actually plays those numbers?
Soon as I seen the Birthday numbers, I knew it was probably gone.
Congrats to the Lucky winner.
That's why it would be hilarious to see a 75 number matrix ranging from 32 - 107 LOL
Many thousands of players play those numbers religiously because they have a much higher probability of winning than the other numbers because they are birthday numbers and very extreme low numbers.
SEE
It's fixed Illinois always wins LOL
At least it is one ticket ........... I hope it is one person ..........
No one has even spoken a word about that. On another note, I thought mocking others wasn't allowed here. Guess that only applies to certain people here.
I thought the same thing.
14 lucky players matched the first 5 numbers for a $1,000,000 prize: 1 from California, 1 from Georgia, 1 from Kentucky, 1 from Minnesota, 1 from New Jersey, 2 from New York, 1 from North Carolina, 1 from Pennsylvania, 1 from Texas, 3 from Virginia, and 1 from Washington: If you live in one of these States: Check your Tickets for a Second Place Win!
Congratulations to the winner/s