Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Two winners to split $355 million jackpot


NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Two winning tickets, from Idaho and Washington, will share a $355 million Mega Millions jackpot.

Mega Millions has yet to announce the identity of Tuesday night's drawing winners, who beat the odds of one in 176 million by selecting the winning numbers: 4, 8, 15, 25, 47 and the mega ball number 42.

The Washington winner purchased the lucky ticket at a Safeway store in Ephrata, a town in the central part of the state between Seattle and Spokane.

Gamblers lined up Tuesday at newsstands and gas stations in 41 states and Washington, D.C., hoping to overcome astronomical odds and win one of the largest jackpots in U.S. lottery history.

"The odds are 1 in 176 million," said Carolyn Hapeman, a spokeswoman for New York State's lottery division. "But plenty of people have done it before."

The winners have the option of accepting their half of the jackpot as a lump sum, or divided into 26 annual payments.

This was the first jackpot winner since Nov. 25, when a winning $25 million ticket -- unclaimed as of Tuesday -- was bought in Broadview Heights, Ohio, according to the Mega Millions website.

In order to win, players have to hit the first five numbers plus the so-called mega ball.

Sixty-seven players who hit the first five numbers without the mega ball won $250,000 each.

The largest U.S. jackpot ever, $390 million in Mega Millions, was won on March 6, 2007, split by two people from Georgia and New Jersey.

The second-largest jackpot -- and the largest ever in the other big multi-state lottery, Powerball -- was $365 million won by ConAgra Foods co-workers in Nebraska on Feb. 18, 2006.


Full mega millions winner story at:

Two winners to split $355 million jackpot

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