"The moment we’ve been waiting for finally arrived, and we couldn’t be more excited," said Gordon Medenica, Lead Director of the Mega Millions Group and Director of Maryland Lottery and Gaming. "We're so happy for the winner or winners, and we know the South Carolina Education Lottery can't wait to meet them."
For Immediate Release
October 24, 2018
Contact:
Carole Bober Gentry
Maryland Lottery
410-230-8725 (office)
410-365-6384 (cell)
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Record-Setting Mega Millions Jackpot Won in South Carolina
One ticket in Tuesday’s drawing matches all six numbers
A historic Mega Millions jackpot roll that started three months ago came to an end on Tuesday night when a winning ticket worth more than $1.5 billion was sold in South Carolina. The ticket matched all of the winning numbers in Tuesday’s drawing: 5, 28, 62, 65, 70; and the Mega Ball 5.
The jackpot was just shy of the $1.586 billion Powerball jackpot prize shared by winners in California, Florida and Tennessee in January of 2016. But it shattered the previous Mega Millions record jackpot of $656 million, which was shared by winners in Kansas, Illinois and Maryland in March of 2012.
"The moment we’ve been waiting for finally arrived, and we couldn’t be more excited," said Gordon Medenica, Lead Director of the Mega Millions Group and Director of Maryland Lottery and Gaming. "We're so happy for the winner or winners, and we know the South Carolina Education Lottery can't wait to meet them."
The winners will have a choice between an estimated annuity value of $1.537 billion, paid in one immediate payment followed by 29 annual graduated payments, or the cash option of an estimated $877.8 million. All estimated prize amounts are before taxes. The actual prize amounts are based on sales through 10:45 p.m. ET on Tuesday night and are still being finalized.
Tuesday night’s drawing also produced 36 second-tier winners. Those 36 tickets matched the five white balls, but did not match the Mega Ball. Two of those winners – in Florida and Texas – added the Megaplier option to their ticket, and Tuesday’s 3X Megaplier number tripled their prizes to $3 million.
Four second-tier winning tickets worth $1 million each were sold in New York; three were sold in Florida; two each were sold in Massachusetts, Michigan, North Carolina, New Jersey and Virginia; and one each was sold in Arizona, Washington, D.C. Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Eight second-tier winning tickets were sold in California, which pays Mega Millions winners on a pari-mutuel basis. Those eight tickets are each valued at $562,474, according to the California Lottery’s website.
There were more than 15.7 million winning tickets across the game’s nine prize tiers in Tuesday’s drawing. There were approximately 370 million tickets sold across the game’s 46 states and jurisdictions during the four-day period leading up to the drawing (Oct. 20 through Oct. 23), with sales reaching nearly $740 million for that span.
Tuesday’s drawing was the 26th since the last time the jackpot was hit on July 24, when a group of 11 co-workers in California shared a $543 million prize.
Mega Millions tickets are $2 and are sold in 44 states, Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Drawings are held at 11 p.m. on Tuesdays and Fridays. Jackpots start at $40 million and increase after each drawing that does not produce a jackpot winner.
###