A winning ticket was validated Friday, January 13 in Maine, a northeastern American state, for a lottery draw promising the staggering sum of around 1.35 billion dollars (around 1.24 billion euros), a announced its Mega Millions organizer on Saturday.
The identity of the winner is not known but only one person matched the six winning numbers, giving rise to the second biggest jackpot in Mega Millions history after a record win of $1.53 billion in 2018.
“This is the fourth win of at least $1 billion in Mega Millions history,” company director Pat McDonald said in a statement.
For this Friday the 13th draw, a paradoxical date that combines bad omens and hopes of luck in the game, 14 people in ten different American states had found the five correct numbers 30, 43, 45, 46, 61. But only the owner of the ticket registered in Maine found the sixth number, synonymous with a giant jackpot, 14.
The amount had been steadily increasing since October 14.
The lottery restarts for a new round on Tuesday, with a starting jackpot of $20 million.