Winners will be introduced at a press conference Thursday
The single largest winning lottery ticket ever sold in the multi-state Mega Millions lottery game has been claimed, a New York Lottery spokeswoman said Tuesday.
The winners of the $319 million lottery are rumored to be seven IT specialists from New York state's Division of Housing and Community Renewal, said Emanuel Biondi, a public employees federation council leader for the agency.
However, a New York Lottery spokesman could not confirm that report.
The winner or winners — who bought the ticket at an Albany, New York, convenience store — are expected to be announced during a press conference at 10:30 a.m. Thursday, said New York Lottery spokeswoman Carolyn Hapeman.
Lottery officials are currently working to authenticate the winning ticket, she added.
The drawing was held Friday night. Last-minute ticket sales increased the jackpot from $312 million to $319 million, the New York Lottery said.
If the winners chose the cash option when buying the ticket, they will receive a one-time, lump-sum payment of $202.9 million. That amount reflects all the cash in the Mega Millions pool and is the fifth-largest jackpot in its history, according to Hapeman.
It's also the single largest sole jackpot-winning ticket ever for Mega Millions, she said.
Friday night's winning numbers were 22, 24, 31, 52 and 54. The Mega Ball number was 4. The Megaplier was 4.
Mega Millions is played in 41 states plus Washington, D.C. and the U.S. Virgin Islands, and is the biggest jackpot game in the country, according to the lottery.
Congratulations to the winners. I wish them well and a peaceful life.
I wonder if they're going to reveal their strategy and system for picking that Quick Pick ?
The one that won the Jackpot of 319 million dollars.
That one.
I buy one every draw, along with my birthday numbers.
Call me crazy.
But I'm really very mysterious and avant-garde in a swashbuckling kind of way.
En garde!
See, told ya.
Ok ridgey ole pal let tiggs be the first..Hey ridge YOUR CRAZY!!!...You know it had to be a system they have been playing for only a few days..Systems..aaaaah yes systems...
Congrats to all the winners.
sully your just to nice and nice people end up last..Be like ridge and tiggs and be mean..tiggs and ridge will beat the lottery even if thre is cheating involved...so help tiggs God...
I'm glad it's more than 1 winner! Spread that wealth around!
"...so help tiggs God..."
LOL, I think this third-person thing may be part of a major psychosis but it is also very enlightening.
This may explain putting mail in the wrong boxes for a lifetime. It was never "I" or "me". It was always "tiggs" who did it.
Now I get it.
So that's why my mailman refers to himself as "the kid".
You're all psychotic maniacs.
Pick 3 question?
Does any one have predition for the month of April
in Texas....
I need the day and evening picks to my email address.
thanks: Swamper1
Congrats...to all the winners
I prefer when it is 1 winner, it drives the greed of envy people crazy .......... just sayin'
The wealth is already spread by the confiscatory taxes !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
"Progressives" at work →
Why are you posting this in a news story?
tiggs95
Have you ever considered that pooling money to play more tickets is a system, It provides more chances
of winning a prize with a smaller investment. I guess you would call it luck but no one has been able to
tell me what luck is. They had the winning ticket that matched all the numbers and that is all. Even when
a system player matches the numbers that's all that happends. System players just try to gain an edge
by playing sets of numbers that they think have a better chance then a simple QP. When you consider
that over half a billion dollars was spent trying to win this JP it only makes sense to try and pick a good
set of numbers. I would have considered the winning set to be very good even before the draw because
it had all the right stuff so to speak. Just because it was a QP does not take away from this. I do find it
a little odd that most QP's I have seen don't share this. Maybe that's why so many tickets had to be sold
before it was won.
aide-mémoire
RL
If you can ever figure out how to handicap a ping pong ball let everybody know until then luck is the answer be it good luck or bad luck..Number predicting is just guessing..Nobody knows what the next set of numbers are and if they did they would hit everytime and there would be no lottery so GOOD LUCK...
syonara
tiggs
Why thank you ridge..tiggs has been called many things but never a psychotic maniac..Is that a good thing?..
I agree with you randomlogic. Don't waste your time though. Some folks just refuse to learn anything new. A Caveman mentaility will keep someone dumbed down. They actually like it that way because then they don't have to use the little amount of brain cells they have left.
It's so sad....
RL,
"I guess you would call it luck but no one has been able to tell me what luck is."
How about whenever the nunmbers you played are the numbers drawn, whatever the method of number selection, that's luck.
How about when you've worked out some numbers and fill out the playslip wrong and those are what hit. Not luck?
How about the woman a few monthsa go who thought she was playing Powerball and played the Mega Millions and won it? Not luck?
THIS!!!!...Thanks Coin Toss...Makes sense to tiggs..
CT
I still think it is just chance, If luck and chance are the same then if one can improve their chances
then I guess luck would also be increased. The women had the correct numbers and that is why
she won. If I make a mistake filling out my playslips I call it a mistake. I can' t change the numbers
that will be drawn but I can play a smarter set, if they don't hit it does not mean that my numbers
selected were unlucky it just means that they did not match the draw. No system will ever produce the
winning numbers every time unless it's rigged somehow. Just because a ticket is a QP does not mean
that it is a bad play. I, from my own observations have found that QP's don't offer the coverage that is
needed to have a good chance, this in no way means that all qp's are bad it's just that by doing a little
selecting on your own you can improve the set. The winning number set was in my opinion a very good
set reguardless of how they were selected. I think that this is the problem between system players and
those that like QP's. If I was going to play a QP I would make a few counts and if it did not meet at least
my minimum requirements then I would have the ticket cancelled and get another. This would at times
be very time consumming so what I do is pre-build my sets and fill out the play slips before hand. Some
would say that I am wasting my time but for me it has payed off.
RL
Tiggs
Where I live there are no ping pong balls at all and the drawings are not even brodcast on tv. If there
were no balls would it make any difference. I posted another method that could be used by the lottery
that used a big wheel like on the game show "The price is right" where every set had it's own space on
the wheel. The wheel would be spun and the space it lands on when it stopped would be the winning
set. If such a method was used would it would there be any difference versus using ping pong balls.
RL
tiggs sister lives in Surprise Az and they don't have a ping pong drawing either and they don't show the numbers on TV..Sounds like a bad state for a lottery..Move to a ping pong state is the answer..ridge lives in a no ping pong sate Tenn..Maybe he should move one state up so he can get a fair shake...He complains about not trusting the Tenn lottery but still buys tickets..Guess he might say "It's the only game in town"..
RL,
Just my $.02 but i think luck and chance (not chances)are the same. How about the phrase, "We'll just have to leave it to chance".
Also, this comes to mind, parody of an old rock song,
"C'mon baby won't you take a chance.....
I left my rubbers in my other pants...."
tiggs95,
"Move to a ping pong state is the answer..."
Very shortly after tiggs had convinced rdgrnr to mive to a ping poin statde that state became a non-ping pong state and stopped televising the drawings.
ridge just can't win..Maybe a born loser...so sad...
Lately my luck has been so bad if I bought a cemetery people would probably stop dying.
Hear they put up fences around cemeterys cause people are dying to get in...sorry that's so old just coulden't pass it up..If you decide to move to a ping pong state like Kentucky please give tiggs ample time to sell out..Thanks in advance ridgey palsey walsey..
Kentucky's a ping pong state?
I always thought it was a ding dong state.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
You'd fit right in ole pal...
Ridge n Tiggs
wonder if i mighten find a place on the boarder tween youns, i needs to finds my way back to sanity casuen
this city life a's getten me down. Still knows my way round a good coon dog and not bad at climbing trees and
and shakin em out. love wetten a hook and sippen the jug. Still got all my teeth but could pull a few if needs
be. Could slep in a holler log if'in it tant tick season yet but just tells i could find someten better. Might needs
some snake boots and kinda partial to bluffs as i love the high country fer tv viewn mostly. Somewheres near
a farm would be nice so I could do my egg shopin without goin to town, if'in they have a smoke house be extra
nice. West facen slope is best causen the sun rises little later, like sleepin in on weekdays. if'in you knows of
such a place like that then let me knows soon.
PS...... must not been important I forgot what i was'a thinken
RL
Powerball rolled! $187,000,000! We could be in for a double whammy everybody!
Watch it hit in Albany, NY....and it'll be the guy that didn't play in the Mega Millions pool!
I'll keep my good eye skinned back fer ya.
I don't understand why they to have a press conference.this will be another media circus.they shouldn't have said anything and let the atty form a trust and cash it in.the lottery commission gives us the b.s. that the reason they do interviews and publish names is to show the public that real people play and win the lottery.okayyyyyyy.
No press conference for me!
New York is one of those states that requires the dog and pony show. Even if they all formed trusts to handle the money, I think they would have to show up at the press conference themselves. I've never heard of a representative being allowed to conduct it in the winner's place here in NY. Perhaps that's why some people wait so long to redeem their tickets; they figure the hype and excitement over their win will have subsided and their press conference won't get as much attention as it would have had they come forward right away.