WASHINGTON, Oct. 24 (Xinhua) -- The Mega Millions jackpot was finally won on Tuesday night, and a single lucky ticket holder in South Carolina can claim a lottery jackpot of over 1.5 billion U.S. dollars, lottery officials said Wednesday.
The winning numbers for Oct. 23 are the white balls 5, 28, 62, 65 and 70, plus the gold Mega Ball 5. The ticket is worth about 877.8 million dollars in a lump-sum cash payment.
The history-making Mega Millions jackpot smashed the former Mega Millions record of 656 million dollars set in March 2012, and is just shy of the 1.586-billion-USD Powerball prize in January 2016 which was shared by three winning tickets.
"The moment we've been waiting for finally arrived, and we couldn't be more excited," said Gordon Medenica, lead director of the Mega Millions Group and Director of Maryland Lottery and Gaming.
"We're so happy for the winner, and we know the South Carolina Education Lottery can't wait to meet the lucky ticket holder," Medenica added.
The jackpot had been rolling since July 24, when a California office pool of 11 co-workers shared a 543-million-USD prize.
Three other jackpots have been won this year -- 451 million dollars on Jan. 5 in Florida, 533 million dollars on March 30 in New Jersey, and 142 million dollars on May 4 in Ohio.
In addition to the jackpot winner, the sales frenzy produced a whopping 36 second prize tickets -- each matching the five white balls drawn Tuesday night.
For matching four white balls plus the Mega Ball, 419 tickets won the game's 10,000-USD third prize Tuesday night. Fifty-one of those are actually worth 30,000 dollars each because they included the optional Megaplier.
In total, there were 15,750,013 winning tickets Tuesday night in addition to the jackpot winner. In this 26-draw jackpot run, beginning with the July 27 drawing, there were more than 50.2 million winning tickets at all prize levels, including 85 worth one million dollars or more and the jackpot winner.
Mega Millions tickets are sold in 44 U.S. states, the District of Columbia and the Virgin Islands.
