One winning Mega Millions ticket sold in NJ

One man has already stepped forward to collect his portion. A Georgia truck named Ed Nabors is one of the winners of the richest lottery prize in U.S. history.

"I'm still numb," Nabors, of Rocky Face, Georgia, said Wednesday. Nabors, who lives about 90 miles north of Atlanta, chose to take home his winnings in a lump sum instead of annual installments, and will get $116.5 million before taxes.

He bought his ticket at a convenience store surrounded by carpet mills in Dalton, the self-proclaimed "Carpet Capital of the World."

In New York State, there were eight winning second place Mega Millions tickets sold, according to Susan Miller at New York Lottery. The second place payout is $250,000 each.

The lottery is a boon for local officials. A New Jersey lottery spokesman said the state got $22.4 million for state education from Mega Millions through Friday's drawing.

New Jersey officials reported on Tuesday that MegaMillions tickets sold in that state at a rate of 700,000 tickets per hour. The jackpot is so huge that Tuesday's drawing was moved from Atlanta to Times Square. New York Lottery diva Yolanda Vega was on hand to draw the winning numbers for the historic prize.

The odds of winning the jackpot are about 1 in 176 million. But there are also secondary prizes, starting from $2 on up. The odds there are about 1 in 40 - which means, of course, you still could parlay your winning back into more tickets in case nobody wins the jackpot Tuesday.

The former record-holders for biggest jackpot: in 2002, three winners shared a Mega Millions jackpot of $331 million. Powerball has the record for the largest single winner with $314.9 million won on Christmas Day.

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

Get more News »

• Email
• Print
• Report a typo
•