New Hampshire Player Wins $168 Million Mega Millions Jackpot
Wednesday July 24th 2019New Hampshire has its first Mega Millions jackpot winner after one lucky ticket holder from the state matched all the numbers in last night’s drawing. The top prize was worth $168 million, having not been won since June 7.
Winning Mega Millions Numbers
The winning numbers for July 23 were 1, 4, 23, 40 and 45, while the gold Mega Ball was 11. There were 612,457 prizes given away altogether, as players from all 46 participating jurisdictions enjoyed success.
There was one Match 5 winner, from California, who pocketed $1.4 million due to the state’s laws on pari-mutuel prizes, but the night belonged to the New Hampshire player who won the jackpot.
The best that anyone from New Hampshire had previously done was to match five numbers without the Mega Ball, including one participant who won $5 million back in 2014 after adding the Megaplier to their ticket. But now, more than nine years after joining the game, the Granite State has finally created its first jackpot winner.
The winner has one year from the date of the draw to claim, and will then have to decide whether to take the full $168 million as an annuity over 29 years, or a lump sum payment of $108 million.
The New Hampshire Lottery’s policy is to release the names and hometowns of big winners, although some players have effectively remained anonymous by claiming prizes through legal trusts. A $559 million Powerball winner from the state had to go to court to fight for her right to stay private, after being told initially that she could not claim through a trust because she had signed her ticket.
Mega Millions in 2019
The Mega Millions jackpot has now been won five times since the start of 2019. The year started in style when 23 co-workers from Long Island claimed $437 million in the drawing on January 1, setting a new record for the biggest lottery prize ever won in New York.
The next two winning tickets were bought in New Jersey and Missouri, before a Californian player landed the largest jackpot of the year so far when they scooped $530 million in June. The winning ticket was bought in San Diego but it so far remains unclaimed.
Colossal jackpots have become increasingly common on Mega Millions since a number of changes were made to the game in October 2017. The number matrix was adapted to its current format of five main numbers from 1 to 70 and a Mega Ball between 1 and 25, while the starting jackpot was increased to $40 million.
The jackpot will stand at $40 million for the next drawing on Friday night, giving you a chance to become the sixth winner of the year. Take a look at the Mega Millions Numbers straight afterwards to see the results.
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