Lottery jackpot among biggest ever near Christmas
Around Christmastime, jackpots often get huge, but rarely the size of tonight's in the Mega Millions lottery.
Around Christmastime, jackpots often get huge, but rarely the size of tonight's in the Mega Millions lottery.
It's worth $173 million for the annuity, $129.5 million for the cash.
Powerball also has a whopper of a prize tomorrow night: $125 million, $80.2 million cash.
There are lots of stories of lotteries paying off big-time in late December - and one spectacular bust:
No one ever claimed a $68 million Mega Millions jackpot won in New York on Christmas Eve 2002.
But last year, on Christmas Day, Jeffrey and Christine Pintuff of Wilton, N.Y., won a Powerball jackpot of $48.8 million, and took the $24.8 million cash.
The biggest-ever Christmas present was the $314.9 million win in Powerball on Dec. 25, 2002, scored by a West Virginia ticket.
That seems to be the only jackpot that tops the current one for a Mega Millions or Powerball drawing on or just before Dec. 25.
Last year, Mega Millions came close, reaching $168 million on Christmas Eve. It rolled over to $200 million for the Dec. 28 drawing, then kept on growing till it reached $380 million on Jan. 4, when tickets in Idaho and Washington state won. The total cash payout was the biggest in U.S. history: $240 million. The only bigger advertised annuity was a $390 million Mega Millions jackpot split by tickets in New Jersey and Georgia.
Pennsylvania cashed in at the holidays a couple of times.
On Dec. 31, 2003, Lisa Ensor of York won half of $221.5 million Powerball jackpot, one of the biggest wins ever in the state. (That jackpot was $137 million as of Dec. 24, by the way.)
On Dec. 22, 2004, Joseph and Mercedes Petto of Philadelphia, along with other family members, won $5.66 million cash, after a Powerball jackpot worth $30.9 million as an annuity was split three ways.
Other big wins in the second half of December:
-- $165 million won in Mega Millions on Dec. 21, 2009, by a Suffolk County, N.Y., couple.
-- $163 million won in Mega Millions on Dec. 18, 2007, by tickets sold in Chicago and Morris County, N.Y.
-- $128.6 million won in Powerball on Dec. 26, 2009, by a Kentucky ticket.
For more on lotteries, go to www.megamillions.com, www.powerball.com and www.philly.com/philly/news/lottery.