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Winning ticket for Mega Millions $1.35 billion jackpot sold in Maine

Once again Friday the 13th has been lucky for Mega Millions®.

A single ticket-holder in Maine will be celebrating a very happy new year after that ticket is the only one to match all six numbers drawn Friday night – the white balls 30, 43, 45, 46 and 61, plus the gold Mega Ball 14.

The prize is an estimated $1.35 billion ($724.6 million cash), which is the second largest jackpot in the history of the game.

“Congratulations to the Maine State Lottery, which has just won its first-ever Mega Millions jackpot,” says Ohio Lottery Director Pat McDonald, Lead Director for the Mega Millions Consortium. “It’s the fourth billion-dollar jackpot in Mega Millions history. We thank all our retailers for their hard work during this spectacular run, and our customers for their enthusiasm and support. I hope the fun and excitement Mega Millions has generated inspires a winning attitude in our daily lives and towards everyone we meet. Here’s to a good year!”

Friday night’s jackpot win is the seventh on a Friday the 13th since the game began in 2002, and the first on such a day since October 2017. The record Mega Millions jackpot remains $1.537 billion, won by a single ticket in South Carolina on October 23, 2018.

This 26-drawing jackpot run ends with a bang, with 7,072,832 winning tickets across all nine prize tiers in the January 13 drawing alone, including the jackpot-winning ticket. Fourteen tickets matched all five white balls to win the game’s second-tier prize of $1 million. Four were  sold in New York, two in California, and one each in Florida, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Texas.

For matching four white balls plus the Mega Ball, 164 tickets have a third-tier win. Of those, 27 included the optional Megaplier (available in most states with an extra $1 purchase), which was 2X on Friday night; they are worth $20,000 each. The remaining 137 second-tier winning tickets take home the standard $10,000 prize.

The jackpot had been rolling since it was last won on October 14, when a $502 million prize was shared by winning tickets in California and Florida. Through the 26 drawings beginning October 18, there were more than 40.3 million winning tickets across all prize tiers. These include 82 second-tier prizes worth $1 million or more, won in 25 different states from coast to coast: Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia.

The jackpot for the next drawing on Tuesday, January 17, resets to its current starting value of $20 million ($10.7 million cash).

Jay Edwards

Born and raised in Northwest NJ, Jay has a degree in Communications and has had a life-long interest in local radio and various styles of music. Jay has held numerous jobs over the years such as stunt car driver, bartender, voice-over artist, traffic reporter (award winning), NY Yankee maintenance crewmember and peanut farm worker. His hobbies include mountain climbing, snowmobiling, cooking, performing stand-up comedy and he is an avid squirrel watcher. Jay has been a guest on America’s Morning Headquarters,program on The Weather Channel, and was interviewed by Sam Champion.

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