News
Sunday, April 01, 2012
Three winners of record $656m US lottery jackpotATLANTA: Three winners who could share a $656 million windfall from the largest lottery jackpot in US history bought their lucky tickets at a 7-Eleven store in Maryland, a Motomart convenience story in Illinois and somewhere in northeast Kansas, lottery officials said on Saturday. Lottery officials said the 7-Eleven store was in Milford Mill, Maryland, near Baltimore, and the Motomart convenience store in the southern Illinois farming town of Red Bud. Kansas lottery officials were not releasing the exact location where the ticket was sold except to say that it was in the most populated northeast part of the state. “Each of the winners gets $105.1 million in cash after taxes roughly, but who cares about pennies at this point,” said Carole Everett, spokeswoman for the Maryland Lottery. The winners whose tickets had all six numbers of the Mega Millions lottery drawn on Friday night will split the jackpot, the biggest in US history, which rose to $656 million after all sales were tallied, lottery officials said. Winners could receive either a one-time payment of their share or take it in 26 annual installment payments. A pre-dawn call alerted store manager Denise Metzger to news from lottery officials that a winning ticket was sold at her Motomart in the tiny farming community of Red Bud, with less than 4,000 residents, about 30 miles southeast of St Louis. “I screamed, I woke my husband up,” said Metzger, whose retail outlet will receive $500,000 for selling a winning ticket. Residents swarmed the store within hours of the announcement to check their tickets, although no winner has yet emerged, she said. “I think everyone in town has been here already,” she joked. Though the winner may want to remain anonymous, in Illinois the state is required to eventually list his or her identity in public records. reuters
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk