Lottery Jackpots Rise to $2.2 Billion in the US

Yesterday saw Gregory Baron and Ben Nelson, 24 and 27 years old respectively, buy $2 tickets for the Mega Millions jackpot. Their goal was to win the hefty $1.6bn prize and be counted amongst the richest people there is in the world.

 

Baron said he would like to start his own company if he were to win the lottery. He also intends to take care of his parents’ mortgage and his student loans while he’s at it – even donating to charities on the way. Baron expressed a wish to keep working despite his win.

 

The odds faced by a lottery player in order to win are greater than the odds faced by a person to be endangered by a shark attack. The International Shark Attack File puts the odds for a person to be killed by a shark at one in 3.7mn. Lottery players, on the other hand, who stand a chance of winning are one in 303mn.

 

Mega Millions happened to set a world record for lottery jackpots when it yielded no winning numbers for the $1bn cash prize last Monday.

 

The record was held previously by a Powerball drawing worth $1.586bn in 2016.

 

Approximately, 280mn tickets were purchased for Friday’s drawing. The spokesman for Maryland Lottery, Seth Elkin, said 60% of all combinations of winning numbers were covered. He further stated that 75% of all winning number combinations are expected to be covered for today’s drawing.

 

When a player gets lucky with all six numbers to win the jackpot, he/she can either opt to take an immediate cash payment of $904mn or choose to receive the total amount, that is, $1.6bn over 29 years.

 

Manhattan-based post-production manager, Ben Nelson, wants to travel if he wins the lottery. He would also like to invest in a farm in Northern California where he would rear Bernese Mountain Dogs. Eventually, he’d like to use the money to make a movie.

 

An electronic sign at a newsstand in Chicago’s Ogilvie Transportation Center failed to display the full amount of the lottery prize to be won as it had a provision to only display up to $999mn.

 

Nobody won Saturday’s drawings, so they pushed up the Powerball lottery prize to $620mn for tomorrow – the 5^th highest jackpot amount in the US history.