Typically considered unlucky, this Friday the 13th became a lucky day for one Mega Millions lottery player.
A single ticket holder in Maine matched all six numbers drawn on Friday (Jan. 13) night to win the $1.35 billion jackpot. The winning ticket was sold at the Hometown Gas & Grill petrol station in Lebanon, Maine, a press release from the lottery game said.
The winner has not yet been publicly identified.
“Hopefully one of the residents and one of the regular customers is the winner,” Hometown Gas & Grill owner Fred Cotreau told the Associated Press. “It’s exciting to have sold it but it’s just more exciting for a single winner and I’m just really hoping it’s somebody here in town.”
Here are the Mega Millions winning numbers for Jan. 13
White balls: 30, 43, 45, 46, 61
Gold Mega Ball: 14
Charted: The $1.35 billion Mega Millions Jackpot is the second-largest in history
Quick explainer: How does the jackpot get so big?
Each time a drawing is made without a jackpot winner, the pot rolls over to the next drawing. When more tickets are purchased, the jackpot grows. Despite the low odds—five numbers between 1 and 70, and a sixth number between 1 and 25, all have to match the draw—players keep buying tickets as the reward keeps ballooning.
Quotable: Maine’s first ever win
“Congratulations to the Maine State Lottery, which has just won its first-ever Mega Millions jackpot. It’s the fourth billion-dollar jackpot in Mega Millions history. We thank all our retailers for their hard work during this spectacular run, and our customers for their enthusiasm and support. I hope the fun and excitement Mega Millions has generated inspires a winning attitude in our daily lives and towards everyone we meet.” —Ohio lottery director Pat McDonald, lead director for the Mega Millions Consortium
Mega Millions jackpot wins, by the digits
$2: How much the winning lottery ticket cost on Oct. 14, 2022, when a $502 million prize was shared by winning tickets in California and Florida. For three months, the jackpot remained unclaimed
26: Draws for this jackpot run that started on
Over 40 million: Number of winning tickets across all nine prize tiers in the last three months
Over 7 million: Number of winning tickets across all nine prize tiers in the Jan. 13 drawing alone, including the jackpot-winning ticket
14: Tickets that matched all five white balls on Jan. 13 to win the game’s second-tier prize of $1 million. Four were sold in New York, two in California, and one each in Florida, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Texas
$723.5 million: Roughly the lump-sum payment the ticket-holder can claim, after cutting 24% federal tax to begin with, and possibly more federal, city, and state taxes. This option, which lottery lawyer Andrew Stoltmann calls a “big mistake,” is the one most people usually take
30 years: Period for which the ticket-holder can choose to receive the winning amount as an annuity instead of the lump sum. The spaced-out payments, increasing 5% every year, not only gives winners more money, but also the chance to build out an experienced team, including an accountant, financial advisor and an attorney, to protect the money and their best interests, according to Stoltmann
1 in 302.6 million: The steep odds the winner overcame to claim the jackpot that even after three months had remained unclaimed. The odds of being struck by lightning in any given year are higher at less than 1 in 1 million, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
7: Mega Millions jackpots won on Friday the 13th, including the Maine win. Four of them were won by tickets purchased in Michigan. (The lottery is drawn every Tuesday and Friday)
What’s the next Mega Millions jackpot?
The jackpot for the next drawing on Tuesday, Jan. 17, resets to its current starting value of $20 million ($10.7 million cash). Mega Millions is played in over 45 states.