World record R23 billion Lotto

For $2 a ticket, you can beat the odds of one in 303 million to win the US Mega Millions lottery.

You are more likely to get killed by a shark than win the Mega Millions.

Who wants to be a billionaire? For $2 a ticket, you have a chance to be among the richest people in the world, if you beat the longshot odds of one in 303 million to win the Mega Millions lottery jackpot of $1.6 billion (about R22.9 billion) tonight.

The sum reached a world record for lottery jackpots after there were no winners who claimed a $1 billion prize on Friday.

It is so much money that if you had it all in $100 bills, you could make a stack about as high as the World Trade Centre in New York city, the lottery’s website said.

“Mega Millions has already entered historic territory, but it’s truly astounding to think that now the jackpot has reached an all-time world record,” Gordon Medenica, lead director of the Mega Millions Group, said in a statement.

But you are more likely to get killed by a shark than win, with odds of a shark attack at 1 in 3.7 million, according to the Tucson, Arizona-based International Wildlife Museum.

After taxes, the cash value of the Mega Millions prize will be an estimated $904 million, which is greater than the gross domestic product of some small countries.

Tomorrow’s Powerball lottery prize stands at $620 million, making it the fifth largest jackpot in US history after no one got all six numbers in Saturday’s draw.

The lump sum cash payout is estimated at $354.3 million.

The current Mega Millions jackpot beats the previous record, a $1.586 billion jackpot for a Powerball drawing in 2016. If there is more than one winner, the jackpot will be shared. – Reuters