A sole winner in South Carolina is the unbelievably lucky holder of the historic $1.6 billion Mega Millions jackpot ticket — but we may never know who it is.
The ticket matching all six numbers was sold in South Carolina, the lottery says. South Carolina is one of the eight states where winners can remain anonymous. Other states that allow anonymous winners are Delaware, Georgia, Kansas, Maryland, North Dakota, Ohio and Texas.
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The $1.6 billion jackpot is the world’s largest ever lottery grand prize. If a winner steps forward and decides to take the lump sum, they will receive $913.7 million in cash. If there had been no winner, the jackpot would have climbed to $2 billion.
ABC News reports that not all states have reported results yet, so another winning ticket may be possible.
The winner — with the numbers 5, 28, 62, 65, 70 and Mega Ball 5 — was more than lucky. The odds of winning Tuesday night’s jackpot was about one in 302.5 million, the lottery says. Plus, the winner could be the first Mega Millions winner in South Carolina.
“The moment we’ve been waiting for finally arrived, and we couldn’t be more excited,” Gordon Medenica, director of the Mega Millions Group and head of Maryland Lottery and Gaming, said in a statement. “This is truly a historic occasion.”
The jackpot has been growing since July, when a group of California office workers won $543 million.
The lottery frenzy also produced 36 second prize tickets, which all matched the five white balls drawn Tuesday night. Eight winners were in California, four in Florida and New York, two in Massachusetts, Michigan, North Carolina, New Jersey and Virginia, and one each in Arizona, the District of Columbia, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wisconsin.
Those tickets are worth $1 million, except for the ticket holders in Texas and Florida who bought the optional Megaplier, which makes the tickets worth $3 million each.
In total, there were actually 15,750,014 winning tickets Tuesday night, most of them being for smaller prizes, which start at $2.
“We’re so happy for the winner, and we know the South Carolina Education Lottery can’t wait to meet the lucky ticket holder,” Medenica said.
Now that there’s a winner for the nation’s largest ever lottery grand prize, those still feeling lucky can try for Wednesday night’s $620 million Powerball prize. The Mega Millions jackpot resets on Oct. 26 to $40 million.
Before Tuesday’s Mega Millions drawing, the highest jackpot in the nation’s history was a Powerball drawing of $1.586 billion in 2016.
Mega Millions tickets are sold in 44 states plus the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Tickets can be purchased for $2.
