Mega bucks for two MegaMillions winners
Sunday August 30th 2009The MegaMillions jackpot stood on Friday at a huge $333 million and finally the bubble was burst and there were mega bucks for two MegaMillions winners each matching the numbers 1, 17, 31, 37, 54 and the Mega Number 31. The two winners, one from California and another from New York will no doubt be doing a fair bit of celebrating after scooping this mammoth jackpot.
Choosing the cash option will see mega bucks for these two MegaMillions winners; $103.4 million but if they chose the annuity payments then they will net $166.5 million. The choice of annuity or cash has to be made when you buy lottery tickets for the MegaMillions, not after you have won. A sensible head when you buy your lottery tickets may see you opt for the annuity payments to avoid a loss, in this case of $60 million, but many are known to choose the cash option when they buy lottery tickets.
As impressive as the prize pool of $333 million was, it isn’t actually the highest jackpot reached by this lottery played in no less than 12 states. The biggest prize fund ever for the MegaMillions game was back in 2007, 6th March to be exact, and saw the prize pot stand at a staggering $390 million!
As well as the two big winner of this mammoth jackpot there were also quite a few winners of the lesser prizes including a player of the Illinois Lottery who scooped $250,000 for matching 5 of the 5 main numbers in this weeks draw. Eighteen other players each managed to match 4 main numbers and the mega ball to scoop $10,000 each!