Updated on: March 26, 2025 / 8:25 AM CDT / AP
A Mega Millions lottery ticket bought along the western edge of the Chicago metro area, in DeKalb County, has made someone in Illinois $344 million richer this week.
The winning numbers in Tuesday evening’s drawing of the Mega Millions game were: 01, 05, 17, 39 and 62, with a Mega Ball of 8, and the “Megaplier” being 2.
A ticket matching those exact numbers was bought at a Casey’s General Store in Cortland, according to lottery officials. It marks just the second large jackpot Mega Millions win this year so far. The first jackpot prize was won Jan. 17 in Arizona, and it was worth a comparably paltry sum of $112 million.
In comparison, the end of 2024 saw a robust $1.2 billion prize won by a lottery ticket buyer in California, adjacent to the Christmas holiday.
Officials said that, ever since Illinois began taking part in the Mega Millions lottery back in 2002, the state has seen 16 jackpot winners, including the game’s first two jackpot winners in May 2002.
Along the way to this week’s $344 million prize, there were more than 8.8 million tickets that won some amount of prize money, with 16 of those tickets resulting in prizes exceeding $1 million, including tickets bought in Illinois and Indiana.
If the Cortland winner of this week’s Mega Millions jackpot opted for the cash sum, they will receive just shy of $160 million in cash.
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- Mega Millions
- Lottery
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