2 Winners in Mega Millions $390M Jackpot

[Emz1Soldier4Life]

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) - There are just two winning tickets in the record $390 million Mega Millions jackpot - one sold in New Jersey and the other in Georgia, lottery officials announced Wednesday.

No one had come forward to claim their share of the prize at midday, but lottery officials in both states were expecting to hear from the winners soon.

One winning ticket was traced back to Campark Liquors in Woodbine, N.J., on the state's southern end. The other was sold at Favorite Market in Dalton, Ga., lottery representatives in the two states said.

"It's the most wonderful thing," said Campark Liquors manager Fern Gandy. "We have so many wonderful customers here. I'm just glad it was one of them."

California's results were delayed until mid-day, but the Lottery finally announced that the count was complete and that the state had no tickets matching all winning numbers. The other nine states also struck out, said Mardele Cohen of the Ohio Lottery, which compiles all the states' information.

The winning numbers: 16-22-29-39-42, with the Mega Ball 20.

The odds of hitting it: about 1 in 176 million.

According to New Jersey Lottery officials, the annuity value of the ticket is $195 million and the cash option is $116.5 million, but that's before a federal tax of 25 percent. New Jersey does not tax lottery winnings.

In Georgia, Favorite Markets president Sam Turner told the Dalton Daily Citizen he believes someone living in his area could be the winner.

"That's a store that's in a heavy industrial area, so odds are it's somebody that lives and works around there," Turner said. "Very few people get lost on Abutment Road, so my guess is it's a local, which from my standpoint, if that bears out, that's wonderful."

Tuesday night's drawing was held in New York's Times Square in ABC 's television studio rather than Atlanta after brisk sales pushed what had been an estimated $355 million jackpot to a record $390 million.

Even though the temperature was just 16 degrees, a handful of hopefuls showed up in Times Square to watch the drawing.

Millions of others had lined up at lottery agents in the 12 states to buy tickets Tuesday. New Yorkers bought more than 1 million tickets an hour, said Robert McLaughlin, the state's lottery director. Virginia retailers sold about 8,550 tickets per minute.

New York construction worker Andelko Kalinic had an idea of what he would do if his Mega Millions ticket paid off.

"Go to the moon," he said. "Why not?"

Some lottery hopefuls in Ohio never had a chance. Ohio's lottery ticket system went down statewide at about 10:20 p.m., 25 minutes before the deadline, Cohen said. The cause hadn't been determined.

"For those people who wanted to make a wager and didn't get a chance, we're very, very sorry," she said.

The largest previous multistate lottery jackpot was $365 million in 2006, when eight workers at a Nebraska meat processing plant hit the Powerball lotto. The Big Game lotto, the forerunner of Mega Millions, paid out a $363 million jackpot in 2000.

Mega Millions tickets are sold in California, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Texas, Virginia and Washington state.

Associated Press writers Karen Matthews in New York; Lisa Cornwell in Cincinnati; Larry O'Dell in Richmond, Va.; and Solvej Schou in Los Angeles contributed to this story.

On the Net:

Mega Millions: http://www.megamillions.com/

[aiden669]

damm...gets a lota $$$
i wnt some

[D@vid]

i can never play. i wanna win, but if i did i would be scared to have a heart attack from being so shocked. thats a lot of fucking money, even after they take most of it for taxes

[Emz1Soldier4Life]

[quote="bestestever202005"]i can never play. i wanna win, but if i did i would be scared to have a heart attack from being so shocked. thats a lot of fucking money, even after they take most of it for taxes[/quote]

yeah but whoever bought the ticket in New Jersey is 1 lucky bastard cuz they dont tax lotto winnings there!