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Who Will Win the $1 Billion Mega Millions Jackpot?
It’s one of the biggest questions in America after a winning ticket with all six numbers went unsold for Tuesday night’s $830 million drawing, pushing Friday’s next jackpot to about $1.025 billion, the third highest total in the history of the game. Friday’s jackpot has an estimated cash payout of $602.5 million, according to Mega Millions, after 29 consecutive drawings have gone without a winner matching all six numbers since April 15. website for more than two hours Tuesday night.
“We look forward to the growing jackpot,” Ohio Lottery Director Pat McDonald, the current lead director of the Mega Millions consortium, said in a news release Wednesday. “To see the jackpot grow over a period of months and hit the billion dollar mark is truly impressive. We encourage customers to keep the game balanced and enjoy the ride.”
McDonald added: “Someone will win.”
But as players rush to collect their Mega Millions tickets and dream big (the odds of matching all six numbers are about 1 in 303 million), another popular question is once again front and center for those already making unrealistic plans for their hypothetical billion dollar win: What would you do if you hit the lottery?
Past lottery winning history shows a wide range of what players do with their winnings. Many have paid off their debts, bought houses and invested their money, while others have invested the money in building a water park, gambling in Atlantic City or starting fight organizations free professional women. Some adapted to life as a billionaire. Others say that the joy and excitement that came from unexpected sudden wealth soon turned to bad choices and sadness, ruining their lives.
“When you immediately realize that you’ve won, it fills you with excitement. You’re like, ‘Oh my God, this is amazing, my life is going to change,'” said Robert Pagliarini, president of California-based Pacifica Wealth Advisors, who has worked with lottery winners. “That’s immediately followed by anxiety and fear: ‘Oh my God, what am I doing?’ How will I handle this? My life can change and maybe not in a good way.’ “
Friday’s jackpot is a far cry from last year’s $1.05 billion Mega Millions jackpot, won by a single ticket shared by four members of a suburban Detroit lottery club. If no winning ticket is selected Friday, the Mega Millions jackpot will move closer to the record $1.5 billion prize won by a South Carolina player in 2018. The player, who also chose to stay anonymously, he opted for the lump sum of more than $877 million. , according to the South Carolina Education Lottery Commission.
Millions of players are expected to buy $2 tickets for this week’s Mega Millions, which is played in 45 states plus Washington and the US Virgin Islands. There were more than 6.7 million winning tickets across the board for Tuesday’s drawing, according to Mega Millions, including nine tickets with winnings between $1 million and $3 million each.
With increased interest in the $1 billion jackpot and an increase in tickets sold, it will be more likely that one person, or several people, will have a winning ticket after Friday’s drawing, said Mark Glickman, professor of statistics at Harvard University. .
“The big difference is when these prizes get bigger and bigger, more people are going to play them, so there’s a better chance that someone will win,” Glickman said. “But that doesn’t mean that any individual has a better chance. Once the pot reaches that range, there are enough people playing that the odds are that someone will pick the right number.”
When players have picked the right lottery numbers, most pay off their debts or look to buy homes for themselves or loved ones, Pagliarini said. He reminded a client of his splurges on a new home in the Malibu area overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
Some have celebrated their wealth through non-traditional investments and purchases or donations. In 2011, John Kutey and his wife, Linda, used part of their $28.7 million from the $319 million Mega Millions winning ticket that he bought with co-workers to go toward building a water park in Green Island, New York, in honor of his parents, according to the Albany Times Union. Louise White won a Rhode Island Powerball jackpot of more than $336 million after she bought a rainbow sorbet in 2012 and set up a trust for her family named after the dessert, “The Rainbow Sherbet Trust,” ABC News reported.
Just this month, Crystal Dunn took her smallest winnings of more than $146,000 from an online Kentucky Lottery game and gave some away to strangers in the form of $100 grocery store gift cards .
He won the lottery. Then he shared his windfall with strangers.
But for all the feel-good stories of unlikely lottery wins, there are other experiences that highlight why it’s important to have a financial advisor and attorney ready to help if someone hits it big, Pagliarini said.
“There are so many stories of these lottery winners who end up with less money than when they started,” he said. “The big question, and the fear, is, ‘Am I going to blow it all up?’ And they might still blow it all up.”
After Evelyn Adams improbably won the New Jersey Lottery in 1985 and 1986, winning more than $5.4 million in total, her winnings were completely spent in 2012 due to gambling in Atlantic City and investment mistakes, according to Forbes. South Carolina native Jonathan Vargas, who was just 19 when he won a $35.3 million Powerball prize in 2008, donated his winnings to Wrestlicious, a women’s professional wrestling promotion he founded. The show, which featured scantily clad performers who also did comedy, lasted just one season and cost Vargas nearly $500,000, according to CBS News.
“If I had to do it all over again, I would recommend that people sit on it for a year,” he said in 2016. “Really decide what they want to do with it.”
While lottery luck stories have been well-documented over the years, the endings to these tales have varied.
He won the $314 million Powerball jackpot. It ruined his life.
Shortly after William “Bud” Post won a $16.2 million Pennsylvania Lottery jackpot in 1988, his brother was arrested for hiring a hitman to kill him for the inheritance. Post was later successfully sued by an ex-girlfriend for a share of the earnings, and was $1 million in debt when he died in 2006.
“Everyone dreams of making money, but no one realizes the nightmares that come out of the woodwork or the problems,” he said in 1993.
In the case of Ronnie Music Jr., the $3 million he won from a Georgia Lottery scratch game in 2015 was used to buy and distribute crystal meth. In 2016, he pleaded guilty to investing in a drug ring and was sentenced to 21 years in prison.
Despite the low odds of winning this week’s $1 billion jackpot and the related history of some winners cashing in, that doesn’t stop people from asking “what if?” Pagliarini plans to go to the store to get two tickets for himself and his daughter, while Glickman, the Harvard professor, will continue to use his strategy of picking Mega Millions numbers completely at random.
If he wins, Glickman said he would like to buy a vacation home in La Jolla, Calif., where he just returned from vacation. But Glickman is honest in acknowledging his history of playing the game means he, like millions of others, will have to hold on to those lottery dreams a little longer.
“When I played last week, I had a ticket that I think cashed $10, and that’s the most I’ve ever won,” he said. “I go into this knowing very well that luck will not shine on me.”