MAINE - A lucky ticket holder in Maine matched all six numbers to win an estimated $1.35 billion dollar Mega Millions jackpot.
After three months of draws that failed to produce a winner, the winning numbers were: 30, 43, 45, 46, 61, and gold Mega Ball 14.
On a day that many would deem unlucky, Friday the 13th ended up producing one of the largest lottery payouts in history.
The winner was declared on the homepage of the Mega Millions website, where it announced that a Maine resident claimed the jackpot.
There had been 25 straight drawings without a jackpot winner, but that losing streak was snapped by the lucky Maine resident. The odds of winning the $1.35 billion dollar jackpot were 1 in 302.6 million.
The jackpot is the fourth-largest in U.S. history.
Despite having better odds of getting struck by lightning (twice) than winning the lottery, Americans continued to spend big on lottery tickets last year.
American adults spend an average of nearly $313 each on state-run lottery contests, according to U.S. Census data. Collectively, Americans spend nearly $75 billion on the lottery annually.
Majority of the time, gamblers are going to whiff on the shot to strike gold. Every so often though, like on Friday night in Maine, a lucky American wins big.
In winning the lottery, winners have two options- annuity or lump sum.
Often referred to as a “lottery annuity,” the annuity option provides annual payments over time while the lump-sum payout distributes the full amount of after-tax winnings at once.
Powerball and Mega Millions offer winners a single lump sum or 30 annuity payments over 29 years.
Eager to be filthy rich, most winners choose the lump sum option. And, why not right?
Winning a billion dollars isn't exactly something you want to wait around for.
After taxes, the payout for the $1.35B jackpot is roughly $725 million dollars cash.
For comparison's sake, that is roughly $300 million more than the $431 million career earnings of 20-year NBA veteran LeBron James.
Jackpot winners could also afford to purchase their own private islands, which range between $200-500 million dollars.
For my Spidey fans out there, you could buy over 103 million copies of the Spider-Man (2002) widescreen edition DVDs with the lotto earnings.
Long story short, $725 million can stretch a long way and the Maine resident will have to get creative on how to spend it all.
Mega Millions has already announced that the next jackpot will begin at $20 million with a cash out option of $10 million dollars.
Mega Millions is played in 45 states as well as Washington, DC, and the US Virgin Islands.
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