The American Mega Millions lottery lottery made one lucky person a billionaire. Yes, you’re reading that correctly! The player from South Carolina carried away an unbelievable sum of 1.6 billion dollars, and this is currently the biggest prize in the world. Before that, the first place slot was held by the jackpot of one and a half billion dollars from 2012 in which three winners from California, Florida, and Tennessee split the prize.
The winner’s luck was really holding on with all its strength. He was able to correctly guess all 6 winning numbers: 5,28,62,65,70, and the Mega Ball number 5. This may seem unbelievable to you because the chances of such a win are one to 302 million. If no one had guessed the numbers, the jackpot would have grown to 2 billion.
“A million dollars will change your life. And a billion dollars is truly an unusual sum,” said John Crown who was announcing the winning numbers. “What’s interesting about this jackpot is the excitement and enthusiasm and the fact, that it’s happening right now!”
Every winner has two options. Either he/she decides to immediately cash his/her prize and gives up almost half of it (in this case he would be left with 878 million dollars) or he/she decides to be paid out the total of 1.6 billion dollars over 29 years.
This may be a huge prize but even such a large sum will definitively not ruin the company. Americans really love gambling and in the past year, they’ve spent more than 72 billion dollars on classic lottery games.