A single ticket sold in Illinois won the $560 million Mega Millions jackpot on Tuesday night—the fourth biggest lottery prize of the year so far—although they will take home a significantly smaller amount after paying their taxes.
A ticket sold in Illinois won the $560 million Mega Millions jackpot on Tuesday.
Mega Millions said the ticket sold in Illinois was the only one to match all six numbers drawn on Tuesday night: 19, 37, 40, 63, 69, and the gold Mega Ball 17.
The winner will now have to choose between receiving the $560 million jackpot spread across 30 annual payments or a lump sum cash prize of $264 million—usually the preferred choice.
The cash prize will drop to around $201 million after a mandatory federal tax withholding of 24% is deducted.
Depending on their taxable income, the winner may face a federal marginal rate as high as 37%, further slashing their winnings to $166.3 million.
Under the installment route, the winning ticket holder’s annual payments of $18.7 million fall to around $11.75 million after the 37% federal marginal rate is applied.
The state of Illinois also withholds 4.95% of all lottery winnings.
The lucky ticket buyer had to overcome abysmal odds of 1-in-302.6 million to win the Mega Millions jackpot.
Tuesday’s win is the fourth-biggest lottery prize of the year so far and the second-biggest Mega Millions jackpot won this year. In March, a single ticket sold in New Jersey won a $1.13 billion Mega Millions jackpot. Just a week later a ticket buyer from Oregon won a Powerball jackpot worth $1.3 billion.
$1.602 billion. That is the biggest Mega Millions jackpot prize in history, won in August last year by a ticket holder from Florida.