One person scoops $1bn lottery win in third-largest payout in US history
‘Someone in Michigan woke up to life-changing news this morning’
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Your support makes all the difference.One lucky person has scooped over one billion dollars on one lottery ticket in Michigan, making them the winner of the third-largest lottery prize in US history.
The ticket holder won the $1.05 bn Mega Millions jackpot on Friday by matching all the numbers drawn and the Mega Ball, the Michigan Lottery said.
The winning ticket was bought at a Kroger store, located in Novi, a northern suburb of Detroit, which is said to be around 30 minutes drive away from the city.
The Mega Millions jackpot win is the third-largest lottery jackpot ever won in the United States, according to the lottery.
“Someone in Michigan woke up to life-changing news this morning, and Kroger Michigan congratulates the newest Michigan multimillionaire,” Rachel Hurst, a regional spokeswoman for the grocery chain told the Associated Press.
The winner has yet to be named and the Michigan Lottery won’t know the identity of the winner until that person contacts them to claim their prize.
The player can either choose to receive their payment through an initial payment, then annual payments for 29 years, or select a one-time cash payment of about $776.6 million.
If a player selects the cash option, they will receive about $557 million after-tax withholdings, the lottery said.
“Until Friday night’s big win, the largest Lottery prize ever won by a Michigan player was a $337 million Powerball jackpot,” the organisation said.
The national and world record for a lottery jackpot is $1.586 billion on a Powerball jackpot won on 13 January 2016, which was split between three winning tickets.
The Mega Millions jackpot had been climbing in value since September after a $120 million was won on 15 September in Wisconsin and the jackpot was reset to $20 million.
The big win also came only two days after a ticket sold in Maryland won $731.1m on a Powerball jackpot.
The game is played in 45 states as well as Washington DC and the US Virgin Islands and the odds of winning were one in 302,575,350, according to NBC News.
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