N.J. winner of $390M jackpot bought ticket in Cape May County

Somebody in South Jersey woke up a millionaire today.

One of two winning tickets for the $390 million Mega Millions jackpot – the richest lottery in U.S. history – was purchased at Campark Liquors on Dehirsch Avenue in Woodbine, according to the New Jersey Lottery.

"It's the most wonderful thing," Campark Liquors manager Fern Gandy said. "We have so many wonderful customers here. I'm just glad it was one of them."

Jim Schroder, owner of the sprawling, wood-paneled store about a half-hour south of Atlantic City, said he would divide the $10,000 commission for selling the winning ticket among his 10 employees.

"I've had loyal employees here for 10, 15, 20 years," he said. "When people are that loyal, they deserve something."

The Jersey winner shares the giant lottery with a Georgia truck driver, who today stepped forward to claim half the jackpot, the richest lottery prize in U.S. history.

"I'm going to do a lot of fishing," Ed Nabors, 52, of Rocky Face, Ga., about 90 miles north of Atlanta, said in a deep Southern drawl.

Nabors bought his ticket at a convenience store in Dalton - the self-proclaimed "Carpet Capital of the World" - near a carpet mill run by his employer, Mohawk Industries. Asking if he will keep working, he said: "Well, at least for a couple more days."

He elected to take his winnings in a lump sum instead of annual installments, and will get $116.5 million before taxes, or more than $80 million after.

The winning numbers were: 16-22-29-39-42, with the Mega Ball 20.

The odds of hitting them all: about 1 in 176 million.

Tuesday night's drawing was moved to New York's Times Square, where the 12 states involved agreed to hold it in ABC's television studio after brisk sales pushed what had been an estimated $355 million jackpot estimate to $370 million. The drawing's usual home is Atlanta, and the states involved report through Ohio.

Even though the temperature was just 16 degrees, a handful of hopefuls showed up in Times Square to watch the drawing.

Millions of others had lined up at lottery agents in the 12 states to buy tickets yesterday. New Yorkers bought more than one million tickets an hour, said Robert McLaughlin, the state's lottery director. Virginia retailers sold about 8,550 tickets a minute.

New York construction worker Andelko Kalinic had an idea of what he would do if his Mega Millions ticket paid off.

"Go to the moon," he said. "Why not?"

Some lottery hopefuls in Ohio never had a chance. Ohio's lottery ticket system went down statewide at about 10:20 p.m., 25 minutes before the deadline, Cohen said. The cause hadn't yet been determined.

"For those people who wanted to make a wager and didn't get a chance, we're very, very sorry," she said.

The largest previous multistate lottery jackpot was $365 million in 2006, when eight workers at a Nebraska meat processing plant hit the Powerball lotto. The Big Game lotto, the forerunner of Mega Millions, paid out a $363 million jackpot in 2000.

Mega Millions tickets are sold in California, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Texas, Virginia and Washington state.