Lottery jackpot records
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Lottery jackpot records are a matter of some interest to both participants and observers of this form of gambling.
It is often said that the annual Christmas lottery in Spain, dubbed El Gordo (The Fat One), is the largest in the world. In 2003 its prize fund reached (converting euros to approximate dollars) $2,200,000,000 with a first prize of $470,000,000 and second prize of $235,000,000. However, every number entered in this lottery is on 1,900 tickets which are often sold in fractions (usually tenths). Thus, the El Gordo prize is guaranteed to be split thousands of ways, and is not comparable to the winner-take-all style drawings popular elsewhere.
The largest draw prize in a lottery was the $363 million Big Game jackpot of May 9, 2000. This game was relaunched as Mega Millions,with odds lengthened to 135 million to one, in May 2002, but the jackpot has never since come closer to the record than the $294 million jackpot of the July 2,2004 drawing,won by Geraldine Williams of Lowell, Massachusetts. She became the largest single Big Game or Mega Millions winner. The May 2000 prize was split between two winners.
The largest single winner of any lottery prize was Andrew J. Whittaker Jr. of West Virginia, who won $314.9 million in the record Powerball drawing of December 25th 2002. Opting as most large prize winners do for the lump sum, his after-tax prize has been variously reported as $111,681,349 and $113,386,407.77.Thanks to different tax rates,the $168 million lump sum opted for by Mega Millions winner Geraldine Williams(previous paragraph) was reported as $117.6 million after taxes.
The record annuity-value prizes in the largest state lottery games in the United States have been:
- California: $193 million to three tickets February 16th 2002; to single winner, $141 million to Alcario Castellano on June 23rd 2001
- New York: $149 million to Juan Rodriguez from the November 19th, 2004 Mega Millions drawing [1] (http://www.nylottery.org/);$130 million in special Millennium Millions game November 4th 2000, shared by two winners; in regular New York Lotto, $72 million to four tickets May 31st 1997
- Pennsylvania: $115.6 million shared among fourteen winning tickets in April 1989, in Super 7 game later discontinued after a scandal; in subsequent Super 6 game $86,192,222.20 in December 1999, claimed by Shemonski family in March 2000
- Florida: $106.5 million to six tickets in September 1990
- Texas: estimated $145 million June 19th 2004
- Ohio: $75 million April 13th 2002
The ratio between lump sum and annuity value varies over time with interest rates and possible alterations in the length of the period for which payments are made.