COLUMBIA, SC (May 10, 2024) – In a stack of old lottery tickets, a Midlands man found a $1 MILLION winner.
He says the winning Mega Millions® ticket had been laying on his living room table for more than a month, along with some other tickets too, that he had been waiting to check.
“I didn’t believe it,” he said when he finally realized he was a millionaire.
He bought the winning ticket while grocery shopping at the Food Lion on Leesburg Rd. in Columbia for the drawing on Tuesday, January 16 (2, 10, 42, 49, 54 and MB: 13). The ticket matched the first five numbers drawn, but missed the Megaball® number to win $1 million.
And he wasn’t in a hurry to cash it in either, or to spend it. The winner and his wife have decided to save the prize money for retirement.
“I’ll still play from time to time,” he told lottery officials. But he said his wife’s not letting him leave his tickets on the living room table anymore or waiting so long to check them.
The odds of winning $1 million playing Mega Millions® are 1 in 12,607,306.
For selling the claimed ticket, Food Lion #647 in Columbia received a commission of $10,000.
The estimated Mega Millions® jackpot for Friday night’s drawing is $331 million.
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