Biggest Lottery Win in Every State and Who Won It – Business Insider

A Mega Millions lottery ticket winner in New Jersey just set a record for the biggest jackpot in the state and what could be the fifth-largest jackpot in the history of Mega Millions. 
Still, the estimated $1.13 billion win isn’t the biggest lottery prize of all time.
In November 2022, a California resident won the biggest lottery prize in US history — his lucky ticket earned him a whopping $2.04 billion.
Jackpocket recently compiled a list of the biggest prizes won on a single lottery ticket in each state, with prizes ranging from the low millions to billion-dollar jackpots.
Some states, like Alabama, Alaska, and Hawaii, have no state lotteries, and so were not included in the list.
Here’s the biggest lottery win in every state.
The couple who won the grand prize were from Glendale but chose to remain anonymous, a local NBC News station reported at the time, in June 2020.
The winning lottery ticket was also the first Mega Millions winning ticket in the state’s history, KTAR News reported. 
The winning Mega Millions was sold in Stuttgart, Arkansas, and worth a whopping $177 million, or a cash value of about $107 million before taxes, according to a press release by Mega Millions in April 2017. 
A Powerball winner in California claimed the largest lottery win in US history in November 2022. The winning ticket was sold at Joe’s Service Center in Altadena, about 15 miles outside downtown Los Angeles, NBC News reported at the time.
The winner was identified as Edwin Castro, who opted for a lump sum of $997.6 million, USA Today reported. Castro, who was reportedly living in a one-bedroom home at the time of his win, went on to buy two multimillion-dollar properties shortly after collecting his prize, USA Today reported.
NBC News also reported that the owner of the gas station and convenience store, Joseph Chahayed (pictured with his sons), was presented with a $1 million check for selling the ticket. 
The ticket was purchased by 67-year-old Judy Finchum in September 2017. ABC News reported he had been playing the exact same lottery numbers for 30 years until she finally won the $133.2 million Powerball jackpot on her dog Tillie’s birthday. 
The winners of the Powerball jackpot, three businessmen from Greenwich — one of America’s wealthiest towns — came forward 27 days after it was announced, NBC Connecticut reported in November 2011.
A press release by the Delaware Lottery said that an anonymous group of 33 co-workers from a printing company in Seaford, Delaware, presented the winning ticket and claimed the $214.7 million jackpot prize on October 12, 2004, each walking away with $2,657,754 after federal taxes.
Florida Today reported that Powerball ticket winner Gloria C. MacKenzie, 84, became the then-largest sole lottery winner in US history when she won in May 2013.
MacKenzie, from Zephyrhills, Florida, purchased the ticket at a Publix grocery store and received just under $371 million. Florida Today also reported that she later sued her son for mismanaging the giant fortune, but she died in February 2021 before the case was settled. 
Ira Curry of Stone Mountain, Georgia, was identified as the winner of the Mega Millions jackpot in December 2013, WSB-TV reported.
“It’s unreal,” Curry said during a news conference. “It’s like I’m still dreaming.”
NPR reported in 2013 that Brad Duke from Star, Idaho, became the winner of the state’s largest lottery jackpot in May 2005 when he won a staggering $220.3 million in the Powerball drawing. 
“I took the ticket in, let the gals behind the counter run the ticket through, and the machine made a bunch of weird noises and they started jumping up and down and jumping in circles,” Duke told NPR. “And I was trying to actually pluck the ticket out of their hand because my first instinct was just to kind of get out of there.”
In September 2022, eight weeks after winning the enormous Mega Millions jackpot — the largest in Illinois and the second largest in Mega Millions history — two people finally came forward to claim it, Forbes reported. They elected to split the $780.5 million pre-tax cash lump sum.
The winning ticket was purchased by an Indiana family on their way to one of their children’s sports games, a Mega Millions press release reported in July 2016.t
The family chose to remain anonymous “to protect the safety and well-being of their children.”
“Their priorities are to use the winnings to pay off debt, plan for their children’s futures, and take care of their family long-term,” a representative for the family said in the press release.
The winner of the enormous Powerball lottery, 51-year-old Lerynne West, a grandmother of six from Redfield, almost couldn’t claim her October 2018 prize after she accidentally left the winning ticket on the floor of her sister’s truck, an Iowa Lottery press release said.
The April 2016 winner of the Mega Millions lottery chose to remain anonymous, although state lottery director Dennis Wilson said that the winner was looking “forward to retirement,” CNN reported.
The New York Daily News reported in 2010 that Rob Anderson of Georgetown, Kentucky, got the Christmas gift of a lifetime after he purchased a $3 Quick Pick lottery ticket on Christmas Eve.
Anderson had wanted to buy three $1 lottery tickets, but the clerk made a mistake. Anderson kept the ticket anyway and ended up winning the enormous Powerball prize.
The Powerball prize was claimed by a lawyer in December 2017 on behalf of the winning three-member family, local news station WBRZ reported. 
The first Mega Millions winner in Maine’s history, who chose to remain anonymous, opted for the pre-tax cash payment of $723,564,144, rather than the annuity over 30 years.
The ticket was purchased in January 2023 from Hometown Gas and Grill in Lebanon, pictured. The store received a $50,000 bonus for selling the winning ticket, lottery officials said.
Powerball said in a press release that an anonymous group of winners who had nicknamed themselves “The Power Pack” claimed the $546.8 million lump sum cash option. Though the winning ticket was drawn on January 20, 2021, the winners did not step forward until May 26, 2021.
The winner of the Powerball lottery was Mavis L. Wanczyk, a 53-year-old hospital worker from Chicopee, Massachusetts, CBS News reported in August 2017. Wanczyk, a mother of two, said at a press conference that she picked some of her numbers based on family members’ birthdays.
A Mega Millions press release said that a four-member Oakland County lottery club claimed the $1.05 billion jackpot in March 2021.
“This kind of money will impact the families of our club members for generations to come,” the club’s representative and attorney, Kurt D. Panouses, said in the release. “We plan to stay humble and pay it forward through charitable giving in southeast Michigan.”
In August 2011, Thomas and Kathleen Morris, a couple from Burnsville, Minnesota, won the Powerball jackpot. They had been discussing their retirement options with a financial advisor when they purchased a random-number lottery ticket, the Associated Press reported.
“It’s still kind of hard to get my head around,” Thomas Morris told the AP, per CBS. “It’s a lot of money.”
WLOX reported that the Match5 winning ticket was sold at Ramey’s Marketplace in Poplarville in February 2022. The winner decided to remain anonymous.
Reuters reported that Missouri couple Cindy Hill, a former office manager, and Mark Hill, a mechanic, won half of a record $587.5 million Powerball jackpot in November 2012. They took the lump sum after taxes, which ended up being $193 million.
At the time, they didn’t have any grand plans for what they would do with the money, but expected that they would have “a good Christmas,” Reuters reported.
Lottery Post reported that the winnings were split between two tickets, one purchased by a winner in Ohio and another by two North West Home Health Care employees, Kim Claassen, 55, and 23-year-old Joe Lamport Jr.
At first, Claassen mistakenly thought they hadn’t won and tore up the ticket — but when she realized she’d been checking it against older numbers, she managed to fish the scraps out of the trash and put the pieces back together, ultimately learning of their win, Lottery Post reported.
USA Today reported that eight ConAgra Foods co-workers took home the winning Powerball jackpot in 2006. 
USA Today reported that an anonymous woman claimed the $559.7 million Powerball jackpot. William Shaheen, her lawyer, accepted the lump-sum payout of $352 million and fought for his client to stay anonymous. New Hampshire state law requires the release of a winner’s name and hometown.
“We respect the Court’s decision and are satisfied to have a resolution,” the New Hampshire Lottery said in a statement, USA Today reported in March 2018. “We are pleased that our winner has claimed her prize money and that she has already shared a substantial amount of her winnings with New Hampshire nonprofit organizations.”
The winner of the Mega Millions ticket, which was announced on March 26, 2024, has yet to be revealed. The location in New Jersey where the ticket was sold has also not been publicly shared.
But if the total jackpot is confirmed at $1.13 billion, the winner has the option of taking home the full jackpot in annual payments or taking an estimated $537.5 million lump-sum cash payout, the lottery said.
The New Mexico Lottery said in a press release that nine friends — Randy Miller, Ron and Cindy Miller, Ryan and Nicole Miller, Kevin and Jessica Breedyk, and Carl and Holly Baldwin — split the enormous prize after they pooled money together at a birthday party in order to purchase a ticket two hours before the drawing in September 2014.
The New York Post reported in September 2021 that the winning Mega Millions ticket was purchased from a Manhattan pizza joint, Pronto Pizza on West 48th Street in Midtown.
The pizza shop also got a slice of the pie — it received a $10,000 commission for selling the jackpot-winning ticket.
USA Today reported that 66-year-old North Carolina native Charles W. Jackson Jr. took home the largest prize in the state’s history in June 2019 after he used numbers from a fortune cookie in the Powerball lottery. 
“I never expected to win,” Jackson said. “I just got lucky.”
The winning ticket was sold at Casey’s General Store in Fargo, North Dakota, AP reported in March 2021. The winner chose to remain anonymous.
The winning Mega Millions ticket was sold at a Giant Eagle supermarket in Mentor, a suburb of Cleveland, the AP reported. The numbers were drawn on December 17, 2019, just in time for the holidays. 
Don and Joyce Harvey were the grand winners of the Powerball jackpot in June 2007, the Associated Press reported at the time, per NBC News. They purchased the ticket at a Shell service station in Roland, a town in eastern Oklahoma.
They chose to receive a $33.3 million lump sum after taxes instead of the full amount, which would be paid out over 29 years, the AP reported.
After Joyce Harvey had been using the same numbers for years, she said a ticket “came out wrong,” but she continued to use those numbers for subsequent tickets — and it paid off.
Frances and Bob Chaney and their daughter, Carolyn West, and son-in-law, Steve West, won the Powerball jackpot in 2005 after they all chipped in to buy $40 worth of tickets in southwest Oregon, CNN reported at the time.
NBC Philadelphia reported that the winning Quick Pick ticket was sold at a 7-Eleven in Levittown, Pennsylvania, in May 2021. The winners of the giant Mega Millions jackpot elected to remain anonymous. 
ABC News reported in March 2012 that the winner of the massive Powerball jackpot was 81-year-old Louise White of Newport, Rhode Island. At the time, it was the third-largest Powerball lottery in the history of the game.
White purchased the ticket after stopping for some rainbow sherbet at a local Stop N Shop. In honor of the dessert that led to her win, she went on to create The Rainbow Sherbert Trust to benefit her family.
“I want to say that I’m very happy and I’m very proud. This will make my family very happy,” White told ABC News. “We are truly blessed. Thank you.”
Though the identity of the winner of the Mega Millions jackpot was never revealed, officials said in March 2019 that she was a South Carolina woman on a “scenic drive” through Greenville when she stopped to buy a ticket, The Greenville News reported.
She opted to take her winnings as a one-time payment of $877,784,124 in October 2018. It was the largest jackpot in US history up until that point.
Neal Wanless, a 23-year-old cowboy working on a ranch in Mission, South Dakota, won the Powerball jackpot in 2009, The Wall Street Journal reported in 2020. 
WSJ reported that Wanless purchased the lottery ticket at a local convenience store while he was getting gas. He went on to purchase his own ranch with the winnings but listed it in 2020 for $41.15 million, making it one of the most expensive ranches ever sold in the state.
The Powerball jackpot was split among 20 coworkers who called themselves “The Tennessee 20,” WKRN reported in November 2016. The colleagues, who played the lottery together every week, said they weren’t going to quit their jobs right away because they didn’t want to leave their employers “high and dry,” WKRN reported.
The winning ticket was purchased at the Smoke Shop in Lafayette, which also received $25,000 in exchange for selling the winning ticket.
The winner, who opted to receive the cash value option of $157.1 million, chose to remain anonymous, a press release from Texas Lottery said. The Mega Millions ticket was purchased at Lakeline Express Mart in Cedar Park in September 2019.
The Powerball winner came forward in August 2022 to collect the massive prize but chose to remain anonymous, WCAX reported.
The winner of the massive Mega Millions lottery was retired truck driver J.R. Triplett from Winchester, Virginia, the Associated Press reported, per NBC News.
He said he was astonished after discovering that one of the five tickets he purchased at a store a few miles from his home was the winner, saying he turned to his wife, Peggy, the day after the February 20, 2004, drawing, and said, “Sweetheart, I’ve got those numbers.”
“Then she got down on her knees and thanked the Lord,” Triplett said in a statement issued by the state’s lottery.
Following the February 2023 drawing, Auburn resident Becky Bell, a 36-year employee of Boeing, was revealed as the winner of the Powerball jackpot, King 5 reported.
She said she had already spent her allotted budget for lottery tickets for the week when she saw a sign for the then-$747 million prize in a Fred Meyer store.
Boeing had just delivered its last 747 jumbo jet, King 5 reported, so she took it as a sign and decided to buy one more ticket. Ultimately, she walked away with $309 million after taxes.
The Los Angeles Times identified Andrew “Jack” Whittaker, 55, as the winner. When he won the massive prize on Christmas Day in December 2022, Whittaker was already a millionaire thanks to his sewage-treatment contracting business. 
“I’ve worked for everything I got,” Whittaker told the LA Times, “but this is the first thing anybody’s ever given me.”
ABC News reported that the winner of the Powerball jackpot was 24-year-old Wisconsin resident Manuel Franco. At the time, it was the third-largest lottery amount in US history.
“I walked into the Speedway and I purchased $10 worth of individual Powerball tickets,” Franco said at a press conference, according to ABC News. “I honestly felt so lucky that I did look up at the camera and I wanted to wink at it ’cause I just had that lucky feeling.”
The March 2016 win was the first Mega Millions lottery ever won in the state after launching in August 2014, a Mega Millions press release reported.
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