A yet to come forward local in South Carolina could be more than one billion dollars richer after purchasing a winning ticket in this week’s Mega Millions jackpot.
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| A local in South Carolina has won the US Mega Millions jackpot but hasn't come forward yet. |
The ticket, sold at the KC Mart in Simpsonville, matched all six numbers drawn Tuesday night, defying the 1 in 302.5 million odds to win the near-record prize.
While the winner is yet to come forward, KC Mart owner CJ Patel is already celebrating.
He gets a $70,800 bonus, and today said he will share part of it with his employees. He has owned the store for more than three years and said lottery ticket sales were brisk leading up to Tuesday night’s draw.
Mr Patel said he has no idea who bought the winning ticket but hopes they keep coming back.
“He’d be good for the business,” he said.
South Carolina is one of only eight states in the US — along with Delaware, Georgia, Kansas, Maryland, North Dakota, Ohio and Texas — where winners can remain anonymous.
South Carolina Education Lottery officials know when and where the winning ticket was bought, but until someone turns the ticket in, they won’t know who bought it and the public may never find out.
South Carolina allows lottery winners to remain anonymous after conducting a thorough investigation to confirm their identity, lottery Chief Operating Officer Tony Cooper said.
“Our board has a policy to protect the winner because of all the risk associated with having that much money,” South Carolina Education Lottery Director William Hogan Brown told Good Morning America.
The name of South Carolina’s last big winner — a $565 million Powerball jackpot in September 2013 which at the time was the fourth biggest lottery prize in U.S. history — has never been made public.
This week’s winning numbers were 5, 28, 62, 65, 70 and Mega Ball 5.
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| The Lucky ticket holder's billion dollar win makes it the largest in South Carolina since a Powerball win in 2003 |
The phenomenal win would only make them an actual billionaire if they take the prize in annual instalments over three decades and hang on to the bulk of the money.
The lucky person can also take an $1.24 billion lump-sum cash payment, which most winners choose to receive.
Although Tuesday’s jackpot was gigantic, it’s no fluke. It reflects a trend toward ever-growing lottery prizes due to changes that worsened the odds with hopes of bigger jackpots and better sales.
Powerball officials made the first such move in October 2015, changing the odds of winning the jackpot from 1 in 175 million to 1 in 292.2 million. Mega Millions followed suit in October 2017, with odds worsening from 1 in 259 million to 1 in 302.5 million.
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