$1.6 bil Mega mystery
Winner can stayt secrett
And the big winner is . . . we may never know!
The only winner of Tuesday’s $1.537 billion Mega Millions jackpot — the second-largest on record — in rural Simpsonville, SC, is allowed to remain anonymous under lottery rules in the Palmetto state.
South Carolina is one of eight states — along with Delaware, Georgia, Kansas, Maryland, North Dakota, Ohio and Texas — that allow winners to keep their identity a secret.
“Our board has a policy to protect the winner because of . . . all the risks associated with having that much money,” South Carolina’s lottery chief, William Hogan Brown, told ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Wednesday.
The lucky winner can also lay low for 180 days before he or she has to claim the prize, said Brown.
The ticket, sold at the KC Mart on Lee Vaughn Road in Simpsonville, matched the five numbers 5, 28, 62, 65 and 70, and the Mega Ball 5.
KC Mart owner C.J. Patel said at a news conference outside his store — which was adorned with a banner reading, “Luck Struck Here!” — that the win is good for the town of about 18,000.
“Hopefully, it will bring us more business,” he told The Greenville News earlier in the day. “I can’t even count that number, you know?”
Patel, who said he had no idea who bought the ticket, will receive a $50,000 bonus once it is claimed.
“I’ll do some good with that money,” he said, adding that he’ll split it with his four employees.
The buyer beat the astronomical odds of 1 in 303 million to win the jackpot, which fell just short of the estimate of $1.6 billion and the record payout of $1.586 billion that was shared by three Powerball winners in January 2016.
But it’s more than double the previous single-winner jackpot: a $656 million Mega Millions windfall in March 2012.
The winner has a tough decision to make — whether to take an immediate cash payment of $877.8 million or the whole shebang spread out over 29 years.
Tony Cooper, the state lottery’s chief operating officer, said the winner will owe the state $80 million in taxes if the full prize is paid out in annual installments.
He advised the ticket-holder to hire good financial and legal advisers.