What to Know
- One lucky person in New Jersey became a multi-millionaire overnight after winning $202 million in lottery jackpot
- However, we may never find out who that winner is thanks to a new law that went into effect last month
- What we do know is the winning ticket was sold at the Quick Stop Food Store in Edison, New Jersey
One lucky person in New Jersey became a multi-millionaire overnight after winning $202 million in lottery jackpot — but we may never find out who that winner is thanks to a new law that went into effect last month.
However, what we do know is that the lucky winner purchased their jackpot-winning ticket at the Quick Stop Food Store in Edison -- although they have yet to come forward, although they have one year to collect the money, according to Executive Director of the New Jersey Lottery Jim Carey.
On Wednesday afternoon, Carey awarded the store owner, Apexa Patel, a bonus check totaling $30,000 for selling the winning ticket.
Patel said he plans to use the money to invest in his store and hopes to continue selling winning tickets. The store has already sold winning tickets for a few lottery jackpots, although none have come close to the massive million-dollar amount won in Tuesday night's drawing.
Mega Millions says someone in the Garden State matched all of its six lottery winning numbers. The winning numbers were 32, 64, 6, 4, 52 and 6 megaplier 2x. The winning ticket has a cash value of $142 million.
Another person in West Virginia managed to match five of the six numbers and won its $1 million prize, Mega Millions said.
Earlier this year, New Jersey joined a growing list of states to permit lottery winners to remain anonymous.
The New Jersey law's sponsors say the bill is aimed at addressing what they called the “lottery curse.”
Local
Democratic Senate President Steve Sweeney said in a statement that the curse amounts to harassment and threats that can happen after winners' identities become public.
The next drawing will take place on Valentine’s Day and the jackpot will be reset to the Mega Millions starting value of $40 million.
Among the top 10 largest Mega Millions jackpot winners, two of them were in the tri-state area.
On Jan. 1, 2019, someone in New York state won $437 million in jackpots and on March 30, 2018, another person in New Jersey matched all the winning numbers of Mega Millions' $533 million jackpot.
