Winners in California, Georgia
Includes video report
Winning tickets for an estimated $636 million Mega Millions jackpot, the second biggest in U.S. lottery history, were sold in San Jose, California and Atlanta, Georgia, lottery officials said late on Tuesday evening.
There was no immediate word about who the winners were, but one winning ticket was bought at a retail location whose name was given as Jennifer's Gift Shop on Tully Road in San Jose, according to Alex Traverso, a lottery official in the western U.S. state.
A second winning ticket was bought at a Gateway Newstands convenience store on Lenox Road in Atlanta, a lottery official in the southeastern state said.
The winning numbers for Tuesday's drawing were: 8, 14, 17, 20, and 39, with Mega Ball number 7. The Megaplier number was 4.
The winners would split the jackpot, though they can each choose whether to claim the money as an annuity paid out over 30 years or as a lump sum cash payout, which would amount to half each of an estimated $341 million haul, the lottery said.
The prize swelled after a spike in sales ahead of Tuesday night's drawing. As much as 70 percent of the tickets are typically bought on the day of the drawing, said Paula Otto, Virginia's lottery director, who heads the multi-state Mega Millions game.
Ticket buying reached a fever pitch over the weekend, with 20 percent more chances sold than expected, Otto said.
The surge of spending pushed the prize closer to the record U.S. jackpot of $656 million, won in March 2012 in a Mega Millions drawing.
"We're awfully close, just $20 million. We're right on it," Otto said on Tuesday.
Totals would be updated again after the drawing, she said.
By Tuesday's drawing, players should have bought enough tickets to cover 65 percent to 75 percent of the 259 million possible number combinations to strike it rich, Otto said.
"You don't know you have a winner unless it's 100 percent covered, though," she said.
Tuesday's Mega Millions jackpot was the accumulation of 21 consecutive drawings without a grand prize winner over a two-and-a-half month stretch. The final jackpot tally nearly eclipsed the world record jackpot of $656 million, set in March, 2012.
The two winners probably got very little sleep Tuesday night, as they try to process winning one of the world's largest lottery jackpots.
Are the winners running around the house screaming? Are they calling their family? Or maybe calling their boss to quit their job? What are they planning to do with all that loot?
What is the first thing you would do?
Fortunately, even if you didn't win the jackpot, the Mega Millions game still offers another 8 ways to win lower-tier prizes.
In addition to the jackpot winners, 20 lucky players matched the first 5 numbers for a $1,000,000 prize: 2 from California, 1 from Delaware, 2 from Florida, 2 from Georgia, 1 from Illinois, 1 from Kentucky, 1 from Maryland, 1 from Michigan, 1 from Nebraska, 2 from New Jersey, 2 from New York, 1 from Ohio, 1 from South Carolina, 1 from Texas, and 1 from West Virginia.
The 2 California winners will each be awarded prizes of $2,621,916 because California awards all prizes in a pari-mutuel formula, which calculates the prize amount based on the number of tickets sold and the number of winners in each prize category.
Also, a whopping 631 tickets matched four of the first five numbers plus the Mega Ball to win a $5,000 prize. Of those tickets, 86 were sold in California, where the prize awarded this drawing is $3,347.
The Mega Millions jackpot was reset to its starting amount of $15 million for Friday's drawing. Due to the rules changes enacted in October, the jackpot will grow faster than before — it will increase a minimum of $5 million each drawing it is not won.
Mega Millions is currently offered for sale in 43 states, plus Washington, D.C. and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Mega Millions drawings are held each Tuesday and Friday evening at 11:00 p.m., and the winning numbers are published minutes later at USA Mega, a Web site devoted to the two biggest United States lotteries, Mega Millions and Powerball.
VIDEO: Watch the press report
All I can say is...I wish it had of been me LOL. No Good Luck and a Super Merry Christmas to the winners. Wouldnt it be great if it was somebody on unemployment and couldnt find a job or something like that and the got this huge financial blessing just in time...That's my Christmas wish
Congratulations to the winners. At least, the lottery fever will be at rest for now. We didn't win anything. We look forward to SLP later today as one ticket was bought for that as well.
Ironically that happened here in Ga where lady who was unemployed ask the clerk for a won on mega millions and accidentally gave her a PowerBook ticket and won 72 million but i doubt that's the case here bc this newsstand on Lenox rd is Located in a Upscale mall so it either a mall employee, shopper or the newsstand owner
well that was fun
I had fun, party pooper.
Congrats to the winners.
Not happy with MM starting cash is no different than before, despite the 'increase' of the annuity to $15m. Oh well, onward to Powerball! Woo hoo!
Congrats and Merry Christmas to the 2 lucky winners.
personally, I wish the jackpot rolled. It's going to take months for the JP to build up again.
Completely anticlimactic!!!
I'm not sure why it takes the states so long to come up with a final jackpot tally for Mega Millions, but apparently the jackpot total for the Tuesday drawing could wind up being something like $648 million. Not the record, but pretty close.
Congrats to the lucky winners, On to the next!
Well, A bit disappointed it didn't roll at least once more but a hearty congrats to the winners!!! Be smart, careful and all the best!! I've got next!!!
luck changed two human live overnight from rag to riches style . congrats to the winners
Completely anticlimactic for real.
For their sake I hope they don't blow it in 5 years like many other winners!
Speaking of, I wish the feds mandated that all states give the option of claiming anonymously. Down here in FL, if you win you can decline to take a photo but you still have to give out your name and city. That may be fine if someone's name is John Smith but when someone's name is like, well.... MINE it would be pretty easy to figure it out.
Down here, I'll continue to play the state lotto which is up to 46 million for tonight.
If it's in the Buckhead area the person who won can very well be from the riches side of the tracks already. I just hope the people are under the age of fifty as I hate seeing senior citizens win.
I was kind of shocked none of the 5 + 0 people played the Megaplier option.
2 tickets win the jp! WTG to those players. Where is the news on the lower tiered prizes? Anyone know?
I didn't win anything and really didn't expect to but I guess with my talk about I don't need THAT much, I
suppose someone was listening and didn't let me win any of it.
I'll change tunes next time the jp is up there: I NEED EVERY CENT OF IT. That should do it.
Shenanigans, time for an investigation! It can't be conicidence that the same state wins all the time. Oh and the state that the draws are done from coincidentally won too.
What's the matter sonny boy, your octogenarian girlfriends dumped you huh?
How do you know the winners weren't already rich or at the very least well off? Plenty of already well off people have won in the past.
You would have to be a special kind of stupid to blow through as much money as both will get in just five years.
Fifty is the new 40. I hope the winners are in their 50's with kids grown and gone so they can enjoy life best. They're young enough to enjoy it and old enough to know better.
Told ya it wouldn't make it to a billion.
Good for the winners!
Now maybe we can come down from Level 16 lottery insanity and revert back to the normal Level 3.
Keeping an open mind that they come forward in the next few weeks to claim. Age is a number and so is winning. So long as they are breathing and have a pulse, kudos for the win.
I was skeptically amazed that the numbers drawn were low numbers....They knew folks would play birthday numbers....Conspiracy? I think not, just the luck of balls.
San Jose is the land of the wealthy as well.
That is where a lot of the Silicon Valley millionaires live.
I was skeptically amazed that the numbers drawn were low numbers
All these neophobes complaining about the changes and look what happens. That's why i always play.
I hope that both winners are in their 60's!
Boy!!!!!! i would love to b at one their houses for Christmas
That would be quite a waste.
Won $5 last night across two tickets, $1 on a regular pick and $4 on a quick pick with the Megaplier. :)
Barring Powerball doesn't go nuts over the next couple of months, we could be looking at another one of these monster Mega Millions jackpots come early March, just intime for my birthday.
I think I am really starting to like the new matrix, inspite of the odds.
Merry Christmas and congrats to the winners, both large and small!
I do believe that my neighbor said he was from Conyers GA
It would be great for someone with that has worked hard for many years to get a break!
It's not even remotely close to a record. Even if you're willing to accept the anuity value as a legitimate jackpot measure, by changing the terms of the annuity they've made it a complete farce to try and compare this drawing to any previous drawing on a dollar to dollar basis. It's like thinking somebody who weighs 400 pounds isn't fat if we weigh them in kilos.
Happy to see a ticket won out of GA. Congrats to the winners of the tickets.
I hope they enjoy their new found wealth.
I was hoping the ticket would roll over at least one more time. I'm looking forward to seeing a jackpot get really high past $800 million one of these days. Oh will guess we have to wait for that.
It was pretty close in terms of sales depending on how you looked at it. But we can't tell for sure because it was a mixed run, part old matrix, part new matrix.
On the previous record run, it took 19 draws to break $200M sales and then got won, and pulled in almost $1.5 Billion total. On the new matrix, if counting from the start of the new matrix 10/22, it took 17 draws to break $200M sales and then got won, and pulled in just under $1 Billion. One more draw would have been an undisputed record on the 18th draw.
Will be very interesting to see the next clean run on the new matrix, without the mix of the old matrix. And one not weighted down by the holidays, which I think negatively impacts sales. People are thinking more of giving, not buying lottery tickets for themselves. I know I do that. Sales got absolutely pummelled for the Black Friday draw, and if not for that, MM may have hit the "soft" record last night. It might be a while though, I'd expect a short run or two in the interim before the next big run.
The frenzy was well worth the dream. But I have awakened to my reality. Lol. But I pray for the winners. That they enjoy their enriched life, that they allow themselves to be ambassadors for will in the lives of others, and that no nightmares arise out of this blessing.
What a mean, rotten thing to say. If you can't say something nice about someone, say nothing at all. Especially when you are telling millions of people that their life is a waste. Karma is a mean bitch and she bites hard.
The Ga winner should be coming forward soon bc I just got a text from my mom that her coworkers in-laws boss just told her employees she won and ofcoarse quit her job
That's funny, I like that:
Your mom's, co-worker's, in-law's, boss won the MM JP.
It's like the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. (or separation)
Everyone must know a lottery JP winner within 6 steps.
LOL. That weird dude in California won't have a penny 6 months from now. It might be a fake story, "Paul Horner". :)
Edit: YES IT IS a fake story at prlog
Fack! F*#k! Fo$k! I picked all those numbers but I allowed my allegiance to certain "significant" numbers like birthdays to cloud my play. Consequently, I only put them on different lines. Won little money but all of those numbers which were not really significant came to me over a series of 2 days. Oh well, it would have been nice being one of those winners but there is always future drawings. Now back to work, you slave! Yes massa Obama!
I found it amusing as well.
Whats even funnier is that it was the boss telling her employees that she quit.
Did they find the Cali winner yet? I haven't seen any story except about the store that won in San Jose.
Wow, for $1, those two second prize California winners walked away with a lot more than those in the other states!
Congratulations to the winners.
Yeah right. Screw them.
I just read , their's a new conference and one winner will not be there . HOw can you collect your money if you aren't at the conference .
Unless your state is Anonymous ....
Congratulations to the winners
Some states don't require a news conference, they just require that they make your identity public. Gloria never gave a news conference but they tried to spring one on her. Called the press while she was there filling out paperwork.
Well the Georgia winner has already come forward to claim her money. I give her 5 years tops.
Why so fast , she didn't plan on average it takes 6 monthsall figured out .
Would never rush to get my money like that , always have a plan and 1/2 packed.
Well, I wouldn't say it takes 6 months, but it sure takes longer than 16 hours. Unless she has a lawyer and/or financial planner already lined up, her hotel room booked somewhere to stay until the furor dies down, and she's gotten a PO Box and changed her phone number between the win and now, she's not going to keep that money very long. She'll go the way of Abraham Shakespeare or Jack Whittaker. I'm not seeing how she could have everything planned and set up in 16 hours.
Time value of money
Unless she has already worked out an arrangement with a bank it will be several weeks before her account gets funded. In the meantime, she will be hounded by friends, strangers and many others looking for a handout.
Congrats to the two winners!!!
These were my predictions for last nights game:
*1st # even
*2nd # will NOT have a '2' in it
*3rd # odd
*4th # even
*MB 5, 6, 7, 8, or 9
5/5 correct! Again, congrats to the winners!
Surely she knows that it takes about 2 weeks for the lottery to collect the money
Congratulations!!! it's very nice to here we had two Lucky Blessed Winners for the Big Jackpot...I just pray they will use their winnings in a manner that's pleasing to The Lord.....I truly feel like if they will follow this path they want wind up like so many others I've heard of in the past that would wind up completely broke with-in only a few years....such stories as this are very sad to hear about causing so many Broken Hearts.
Just like she should know to have things organized and have her ducks in a row before claiming. But here she is. Lottery winners 'should' know a whole lot of stuff they don't actually know. And that's usually why they end up bankrupt inside of 5 years.
Its her Money, she can do what she wants.
When an NFL team wins the Superbowl, they don't get to touch the Trophy 6 months after the win.
Excellent point.
"It was pretty close in terms of sales depending on how you looked at it."
How do you look at it to make $1 billion over 22 drawings and $1.5 billion over 19 drawings "pretty close"?
Every single drawing had bigger sales during the record run, with average sales of about $78 million per drawing. For the current run the average is a bit shy of $45.5 million.
For the modest jackpots in the first several drawings the record run only saw sales that were about 8 to 25% higher. Once the jackpots got past $150 million sales during the record run ranged from 80% higher (drawing number 14) to 1000% more (drawing number 19). Even the 22nd drawing of this run only racked up 52% of the sales for the 19th drawing of the record run. That suggests to me that the regular players are playing a little bit less then they used to, but the big jackpots are bringing in much less than they used. Either the regular players aren't spending as much more as they used to, or the infrequent players aren't playing as much, or both.
It's that last that makes the experiment a real failure, assuming subsequent runs don't see much bigger sales. MM succeeded in generating an unusually large jackpot (though well shy of their record), but it produced far less in sales than in the past.
You're ingnoring the data to fit your narrative. Just look at the sales. Compare the new matrix sales post-matrix-change, compared to the record run.
Wow, it looks just like the record run in March 2012 except slightly greater rate of increase of sales. Like I said, $1.5 Billion in 19 draws compared to $1 Billion in 17 draws for the new run, and 1 more draw would be easily bust that $1.5 Billion number and then some. Breaking all records for Sales, Cash and Annuity on the 18th draw. Since the new matrix, rate of sales increased dramatically, and reversed the decline and turned it around.
When the matrix changed, the advertised jackpot was $55 million. That in itself skews the sales results.
If you compare the closest amount from the record run ($51 million) and start from there, sales then are still greater than the recent run. Even the average sales increase per draw is greater (~38% vs. 24.6%) and the slope is less than half.
Apparently jackpot fatigue is a factor, but regardless I don't think it's an accurate to compare sales for a run that started above the reset versus a run that ran from reset to completion. I believe it would be better to just wait for another run and then compare before concluding that the new matrix is "working."
Agreed. And I think I said that, didn't I:
But we can't tell for sure because it was a mixed run, part old matrix, part new matrix.
Look, I could care less if the new MM matrix succeeds or fails. But this constant whining about, "Oh the new MM matrix is horrible, it's evil, it's going to fail!" is just not consistent with the data we have post-change. Let's just wait and see.
PNE:
>>>cause eighteen>>>nineteen>>>twenty year ole's know bout blow^ng 100 MIL
This is part of my current event to end the year 2013.
And you're doing a good job, ressuccess.
I've been watching you.
No, I'm using the data. You seem to be ignoring it even when you acknowledge it, since you know that a previous run reached $1.5 billion in sales over 19 drawings, whereas this one took 22 drawings to reach only $1 billion. As usual I can't tell much from that stuff you've got jammed together on the graph, but the raw numbers are easy to understand. Here they are, along with comparisons to one another. Other than corrections for the final totals the annuity values are from lottoreport, as are the sale figures. Cash value for the record and the post-matrix change are based on the final cash /anuity ratio; the first 5 cash values for the current run are based on 70% of the annuity value.
The only thing where there's any argument at all that the numbers don't favor the record run is the first 4 drawings after the change. All of the actual sales figures for the record run are better, but the increases relative to the curent record have some minor regression. 1. The greater sales for the record run relative tot he current run for those 4 drawings don't continue the steady increase that's seen in all the other drawings. 2. For drawings 7 and 8 the sales increase over the previous drawing are slightly better for the current run than for the record run. Fell free to take it as an advantage, but the sales are still a minimum of 30% better during the record run.
One other thing that could potentially be a factor would be a general awareness of how much more inflated the annuity values are under the new schedule. Sales obviously correlate to jackpot values, so if people make their decisions based on the actual cash then sales for two identical annuity values aren't a reliable measure of sales potential. Unfortunately, that doesn't really help with an argument that the new matrix has improved anything. When similar cash values aproaching $200 milion are compared they're much closer than an annuity comparison, but those cash values came 3 drawings later with the curent run, and I think it's asafe bet that those sales were largely related to the higher annuity that was advertised.
You can wait for another run that's entirely based on the new matrix, but I don't see any reason that this run isn't a valid indicator, unless there was some factor that's independent of the lottery that caused people to play less. If you think there's a reason that the change makes the current run bad for comparison, feel free to explain what it is.
Those last 3 percentage figures under sales should be in the far left column. The empty cells were just duscarded and I'm not going to start over to fix it.
Once again, you're just doing a simplistic analysis of things like individual intervals or totals, not looking at the overall sales activity and trends.
Just simply looking at the $1.5 Billion total of the record 2012 draw is ignoring the circumstances of that draw. You can deny the graph which is as plain as day, but you can't deny the facts:
For 2012 record run, it took 18 draws for the sales to reach a level that significantly exceeded the odds on the game for a likely winner, $191M, for a total of $839M for the run. But they got lucky and it rolled instead of being won, causing the sales for the 19th draw to balloon to nearly 4 times odds at $651M, creating not just a win but 3 winners. That was luck, not the norm.
Since the start of the new matrix 10/22, this run took 17 draws for the sales to reach a level that significantly exceeded the odds on the game for a likely winner, $337M, for a total of $988M for the run. Luck did not intervene and what was expected from probability actually occurred: 2 winners. If they had gotten lucky and the 12/17 draw rolled, then the 18th draw would have certainly broken the $1.5 Billion total, and both the annuity and cash jackpot records 0f 2012.
But as I've said many times before, we can't tell for sure because it was a mixed run, part old matrix, part new matrix. Best to wait until we have clean run on the new matrix.
Probability curves for new MM showing likely outcome of 2 winners for 12/17 draw:
The states that's NOT anonymous , should be ............
I agree. Based on what I've seen, I seriously doubt Curry will have a penny to her name in 4 years. She'll be completely broke by then. I wish her good luck because she is really going to need it.
And the award for horrible comparison goes to...
You know who loves the fact that she came forward so quickly? The other winner.
What have you seen that would tell that Curry will be broke in 4 years????
You seem to be confused about when a jackpot run starts. It happens right after there's a winner and the jackpot is reset to the minimum, not when they change the matrix. You wouldn't be stupid enough to say that it only took 5 drawings after the start of December, so why do you pretend it took 17 drawings? The simple fact is that it took 22 drawings to garner a billion in sales, compared to 19 drawings to reach 1.5 billion. More drawings, smaller sales, period. The purpose of MM is to sell tickets for the 50 cent profit they make on each one, so success is measured by total sales.
That the record run benefitted from the final rollover is irrelevant, because sales for the record jackpot were higher at every single point along the way. Similarly, that the current run would have likely reached 1.5 billion with another rollover is irrlevant, because it would then have had 4 drawings more than the record instead of 3 more. Selling 1.5 billion tickets over 23 drawings isn't better than seling 1.5 billion tickets over 19 drawings, no matter what you think your graphs are showing.
You still haven't explained why the mixed matrix prevents us from making a valid comparison. There isn't a single sales figure where the current run was better than the record run. It started out with lower sales while still using the old matrix, and sales slipped further and further behind as the jackpot increased under the new matrix. Even if you forget how long it took to reach any given point and just compare sales for similar cash value jackpots towards the end of each run, current sales are lower. Here's a table showing sales per million dollars of cash value for each drawing:
Let's remember how this all started, shall we?
Todd said: "...the jackpot total for the Tuesday drawing could wind up being something like $648 million. Not the record, but pretty close."
You said: "It's not even remotely close to a record."
I replied to you: "It was pretty close in terms of sales depending on how you looked at it. But we can't tell for sure because it was a mixed run, part old matrix, part new matrix."
Then I went on to prove how looking at just sales SINCE THE START OF THE NEW MATRIX 10/22/13 that the sales activity curve looked remarkably similar to the record $656M run of 2012. And it was only because of the 2nd to last draw having a lucky rollover that the total ballooned to $1.5B for 2012 run, and it didn't for this $648M run ending 12/17, owing to the lower total.
This whole idea that you and others have that sales are down with new matrix MM are just not supported by any facts.(yet) There are no indications of lower sales SINCE THE START OF THE NEW MATRIX 10/22/13. On the contrary, there are many indications that sales are up. But that is not a fair comparison and those results are inconclusive since it was a mix of old and new MM matrix.
And it really doesn't make sense to compare the new matrix MM to performance levels of old MM 2 or 3 years ago. That was a different time, before the MM sales decline, before jackpot fatigue and the dominance of Powerball. In order to make a proper evaluation of an introduced change, you compare it to the time period immediately preceding and leading up to the change event. And comparing the new matrix MM compared to the previous full $189M run on old matrix ending 10/1/13, sales and other metrics are all the same or higher, period.
"You seem to be confused about when a jackpot run starts."
As I said before, it depends on how you look at it. One very simple way to look at it, and this may shock you at how simple this is:
A NEW GAME started on 10/22/13, that is draw #1! Duh? How much simpler can it be? A new matrix, a new prize structure, and new annuity. The only issue is that there was $26M cash carried over from the old MM game which ended on 10/18/13 to help fund the jackpot of the new MM game. The jackpot itself is the result of 5 additional draws/rolls, but as far as the draw number, it is clear where draw #1 is. You can make other hypothetical comparisons including the previous draws as part of the current run, but that is just academic.
"You still haven't explained why the mixed matrix prevents us from making a valid comparison."
Well, as I said before, and just above, it is not a fair comparison since the new matrix MM benefitted from a boost of $26M cash jackpot carried over from the old MM game. All results for sales, cash and annuity are skewed in ANY comparison by that simple fact.
We can revisit the performance of new matrix MM in 6 to 12 months, after it has had several clean runs not encumbered by the holiday season and the mix of old and new matrix.
But I grow weary of this issue. I've made my point and have moved on, so should you. You can have the last word because my argument is complete.
The winner in GA sure has the hounds on her trail. Could not believe that someone went out to her allegged home, took pictures of it and posted it on the internet. Not sure if that is bordering on the invasion of privacy, because she came out in public.
Some folks are saying you don't need a lawyer but if she found the right one, they could have advised her about precautions to take before goig public. And yes the lawyers too are no doubt pursuing her as a client, along with hoards of financial advisors, charity causes and even some "undesireable characters".
Too bad folks can't have the option to keep their names from the public, in all states.
"A NEW GAME started on 10/22/13, that is draw #1! Duh?"
Duh, indeed. Calling that the starting point of the new game may be reasonable, but since it was preceded by 5 drawings with rollovers claiming it's the first drawing is ridiculous when you're comparing it to other jackpot runs. Are you seriously telling me that comparing a jackpot run that starts with an advertised jackpot of $55 million to one that starts at $12 million makes any sense at all?
OTOH, that approach could explain why you've been saying that it's not valid to compare a run during which the matrix was changed to one with a constant matrix, but by insisting on starting from drawing # 6 you're trying to use the recent run as if it did have a constant matrix. The problem for your argument is that to then make a fair comparison to sales for any previous run you need to use starting points for those runs where the advertised jackpot was already close to $55 million, too. For the record run that means ignoring the first 5 drawings, and treating is as if the entire run was still 3 runs shorter than the 17 you want to use for the recent run. That brings us back to where we started. There simply isn't any valid argument to characterize the recent run as coming close to the previous record.
Why not? The fool did nothing to prepare to defend herself or her family's privacy from the nuts and crooks before putting herself out there in front of them all.
I maintain that the second winner was ecstatic that she did it though.
Did the second winner ever come forward? I'm a little out of the loop. If not I bet they are waiting until after the first. that's what I would have done.
$648 Million Mega Millions jackpot split by 2 tickets?
We will see a $600 Millions jackpot in 2015.
It takes a while to collect billions of dollars spent to win a $648 Millions jackpot.
You are experiencing Lottery Hangover.
Playing the lottery.
They are going to spend it all, including the money that you lost playing.
Do not worry.You will win a lottery jackpot at the age of 90. Good luck.