The ticket – It is known, as Corriere della Sera reports, that the ticket has already been redeemed. It had been bought from the Hometown Gas & Grill gas station: “Lots of people coming and going here today – enthused the owner – It’s exciting to have sold it, I hope the winner is one of the residents and one of my regular customers” The store gets a $50,000 bonus for ticket sales and its owner becomes one of the richest people in Maine.
The first jackpot in all of Maine – The state scored its first win on Friday the 13th. After 25 consecutive empty draws, the magical Sestina was therefore guessed at a probability of 1 in 302.6 million. The $1.35 billion prize is the second largest win in Mega Millions history (the first in 2018 was $1.53 billion in South Carolina) and the fourth largest overall win in US history.
The winner – To collect the full amount, the winner would have to choose to take the money in annual installments for 29 years. But most jackpot recipients prefer the cash option, which is smaller but faster (it was estimated at $724.6 million for Friday night’s drawing). From the lottery homepage, we learn that the winner is from Maine and instead agreed to receive the prize through annual payments through 2052. An annuity of $46,551,724 per year.