2 tickets yield winners of Powerball, Mega Millions $1B in one weekend
More than $1 billion in jackpots could be claimed as soon as Monday after Mega Millions and Powerball each had winners on back-to-back nights of a historic lottery weekend.
Mega Millions kicked off the parade of riches Friday night when the lottery’s drawing resulted in one winning ticket, sold in Florida, worth a cool $450 million.
Twenty-four hours later, Powerball upped the ante. The lottery announced that one ticket sold 50 miles north of Boston in Merrimack, N.H., a town of
25,000, was the winner of that game’s
$560 million jackpot. It’s the eighthlargest lottery prize in U.S. history and the sixth-largest Powerball jackpot.
“Can you believe someone just walked into my store and won?!” convenience store owner Sam Safa told USA TODAY on Sunday. “Most of my customers are local, and I’m hoping it’s someone local. But whoever it is, congratulations to them.”
Safa, who has owned the store for 14 years, said he once sold a ticket worth
$250,000 and has sold a few worth
$100,000 — “but nothing like this.” He said his store gets $75,000 for selling Saturday’s winner.
The store and Safa also are getting a lot of love from longtime customers stopping in with congratulations, he said.
“It’s a nice bonus and I am very happy about the money,” Safa said. “It’s just so nice to have so many people stopping by, saying hello, shaking my hand.”
The Mega Millions ticket, purchased at a 7-Eleven in Port Richey, will bring home the 11th largest jackpot in U.S. history and fourth-largest Mega Millions jackpot ever.
Two such big winners in one weekend is unprecedented — the only other time two of the top 12 jackpots hit in the same month was in 2016.