The whopping $1.337 billion Mega Millions jackpot was won on Friday with a single ticket bought in Illinois.
The winning ticket was sold at a Speedway gas station store in Des Plains, a Chicago suburb, according to the Illinois Lottery website.
Starting at $20 million on April 15, the jackpot grew for 29 consecutive weeks without a winning number.
The winning numbers for the ticket revealed on Friday were 13, 36, 45, 57, 67, and the mega ball at 14.
This was the second largest single ticket ever won in Mega Millions history, and the third largest jackpot ever won in the U.S., CNN noted.
The largest single Mega Millions ticket of $1.537 billion was sold in South Carolina in 2018. The largest jackpot ever of $1.586 billion, through Powerball, was shared between winners in California, Florida, and Tennessee in 2016.
Lottery winners in Illinois may choose to remain anonymous if they win any prize over $250,000, which typically happens, an Illinois Lottery spokeswoman told the AP. The winner has not come forward as of yet.
The winner will take home a $780.5 million cash prize and will have either two options of being paid the cash prize annually over 29 years or receiving it in a lump sum.
According to Mega Millions, half the proceeds of each ticket remain in the state where the ticket was sold.
Ohio Lottery Director Pat McDonald, currently serving as Lead Director for the Mega Millions Consortium, in a press release on Saturday said:
Congratulations to the Illinois Lottery for selling the winning ticket for the $1.337 billion Mega Millions jackpot. We are thrilled to have witnessed one of the biggest jackpot wins in Mega Millions history. We’re eager to find out who won and look forward to congratulating the winner soon! Better still, this exciting jackpot run has had a significant positive impact on the revenues for good causes raised by our member lotteries.”
The jackpot will reset to a starting value of $20 million ($11.6 million in cash) for a drawing on August 2.
You can follow Ethan Letkeman on Twitter at @EthanLetkeman.
