Virginia player wins $200 million lottery jackpot

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By David Liu - davidl at foodconsumer dot org

Saturdat Oct 17, 2009 (foodconsumer.org) -- Mega Millions, one of the two national lotteries, announced today Oct 17 that there was one jackpot-wining ticket in the October 16 Mega Millions drawing.

The wining ticket sold in Shenandoah, Virginia made the winner $200 million richer. The lottery operator has not released any detail about the lottery winner as of the release of the brief announcement.

The chance to win a Mega Millions jackpot is one out of 175,711,536. The lottery winning numbers for the Oct 16 drawing are 10 - 13 - 18 - 33 - 51 and the Mega ball number is 43.

In Illinois, one player purchased a ticket at 7-Eleven located at 4353 W 55th St, Chicago, IL 60632 that matches 5 of 5 numbers and won $250,000. Eight 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 that will be held on Oct 20, is $12 million, or $7.6 million cash.

The states participating in Mega Millions include Georgia, Illinois, California, Texas, Washington, Virginia, Ohio, New York, New Jersey, Michigan, Maryland and Massachusetts. The lottery results are available online.

Megamillions.com, the official game website, describes 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.