A lottery player in California has won a staggering $1.2 billion in the Mega Millions lottery.
Let’s not lie, one billion dollars is simply a silly amount – who needs that much money and where would you even begin to start with spending it? Well, a private island to run away from all people, a shopping trip, takeaways and a house would probably be a nice place to start.
And one person doesn’t just have to sit here and daydream about what they’d do with such a lottery sum, having won the fifth largest jackpot in the Mega Millions history, defeating a staggering odds of 302,575,350 to one – you would quite simply feel like the luckiest person alive.
The winning numbers are reported by The Post were 3, 7, 37, 49, 55 and gold Mega ball of 6.
And by those ridiculous odds, someone managed to match every single one and is taking home the whopping sum.
The question is, who is it?
What would you do with $1.2 billion? (FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images)
Well, the winning ticket is reported as having been purchased from Sunshine Food and Gas station in Cottonwood, Shasta County, California.
The billionaire can decide whether or not to get the payout in one lump sum or spread across in yearly payouts.
If they decided to receive it in one lump sum they’d receive a reported $549.7 million.
Lead director of the Mega Millions Consortium, Joshua Johnston, said, as quoted by the Post: “What an amazing present this holiday season! At an incredibly special time of year, this is both an incredibly special moment for our winner, and for all the great organizations and causes that benefit from lottery ticket sales around the country.”
The win marks the fourth time a Mega Millions player has won the jackpot in 2024, however it comes after a three month drought of there being no grand prize winners.
And despite being a staggering $1.22 billion win, it’s not even the largest in Mega Millions history.
The odds were over 302 million to one (FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images)
The largest ever Mega Millions jackpot to date was won in August 2023, amounting to a staggering $1.602 billion.
A $1.537 billion jackpot was won in October 2018 and a jackpot of $1.348 was won in January 2023.
And if you think that’s a lot? Well, the largest ever US lottery jackpot was a $2 billion Powerball prize won in November 2022 and the recipient also lived in California.
