States differ in what conditions they allow winners to remain anonymous, or whether they can collect in the name of a trust, she said. Others include Delaware, Maryland, Kansas, North Dakota and South Carolina. Ohio is one of at least seven states that allow winners, who might be wary of fraud or of becoming targets of crime, to hide their identities. “Internally, we do check whoever that person is,” she said. Marie Kilbane of the Ohio Lottery said that in her state, this includes whether a winner owes child support. However, the information may still have to be revealed if a public records request is submitted or the Illinois Lottery is legally mandated to do so, the agency writes in its handbook. In Illinois, winners of $250,000 or more can request to keep their name and residence anonymous when they claim their earnings. The laws, including whether the names of winners are required to be announced, differ among states. The competing multistate Powerball lottery had a world-record jackpot for the January 2016 drawing for $1.586 billion that was shared by winners in California, Florida and Tennessee.Įach state that participates in Mega Millions oversees the lottery operations within its jurisdiction, including sales, retailers, taxes owed and other financial liabilities. It was the second-largest jackpot for this lottery, edged out by the $1.537 billion winning ticket in South Carolina on Oct. It was not immediately known if any of those tickets won anything. “We are doubling down,” AJ Kumaran, a co-chief executive of the company, said in an interview with LiveNOW from FOX on Thursday. It took a gas station eight hours to print the tickets, but the company remained undeterred, and tried again on Friday. Executives at Raising Cane’s, a chicken-wing restaurant with locations around the United States, purchased one ticket for each of their 50,000 employees for the $830 million drawing on Tuesday. Nevada, Utah, Alabama, Alaska and Hawaii do not, but residents of those states can still purchase tickets elsewhere and then travel to collect a prize.Įxcitement built as the jackpot grew. That brought us to this $1.34 billion moment.įorty-five states, as well as Washington, D.C., and the Virgin Islands, participate in the Mega Millions lottery. The jackpot swelled because no one had matched the five numbers and Mega Ball in any of the previous 29 drawings, held every Tuesday and Friday, since a winning ticket on April 15 in Tennessee. In the highly unlikely event that luck, fate or prayer made you a winner, you will face major life decisions as well as some practical questions: Should you stay anonymous? Is it best to take the lump sum or annual payouts? Do you need a lawyer? The odds of winning the jackpot were long, one in 303 million. Those were sold in Florida, Arkansas, Iowa and Pennsylvania. Six more won $2 million by paying for the optional Megaplier number, which increases the prize money. In addition to that golden ticket, Mega Millions also announced Saturday that there were more than 14 million other winning tickets sold in more than a dozen states, with prizes as high as $2 million or as little as $4.Īmong those were 20 tickets that won the lottery’s second-tier prize, $1 million, by matching five white balls in the drawing. So we’re telling all of our players - check your tickets.” “We don’t know whether or not they’re aware they’ve won this incredible prize.
“We have not heard from the winner yet,” said the director of the Illinois Lottery, Harold Mays.