Two lottery players win $333 million jackpot

By David Liu (davidl@foodconsumer.org) and edited by Sheilah Downey (sheilahd@foodconsumer.org)

Two players, one in California and the other in New York, on Friday won the Mega Millions lottery jackpot totaling $333 million, Illinois Lottery officials announced this morning in an email.

Both winners will split the jackpot and each will receive $166.5 million or $103.4 million for cash option.

Mega Millions, one of the two national lotteries, runs in 12 states including California, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts,Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Texas, Virginia and Washington.

The lottery jackpot is the third largest.  The largest jackpot totaling 390 million resulted also from Mega Millions on March 6, 2007 and the second largest totaling $365 million from Power Ball, the other national lottery.

The chance to win a Mega Millions jackpot is one out of 175,711,536. The winning numbers for Friday's draw were 01-17-31-37-54 and the mega ball number was 31.

In Illinois, one player purchased a ticket in Wilmington, Ill.,that matches 5 of 5 numbers and won $250,000.  Eighteen other Illinoisans won $10,000 as their tickets match 4 of 5 numbers and the mega ball.

The Mega Millions grand prize or the jackpot for the next drawing held on Tuesday, Sept 1, is $12 million, or $7.6 million cash.

Megamillions.com, the official game website, described how the numbers are drawn:

Mega Millions lottery drawings are held Tuesday and Friday at 11:00 p.m. Five balls are drawn from a set of balls numbered 1 through 56; one ball is drawn from a set of balls numbered 1 through 46. You win if the numbers on one row of your ticket match the numbers of the balls drawn on that date. There are nine ways to win a prize, from $2 to the jackpot. If no one wins the jackpot, the money is added to the jackpot for the next drawing. Overall chances of winning a prize are 1 in 40.