Community Corner

Lottery Jackpots Continue to Climb

After no winners over the weekend, the first chance for Georgians to grab a really big payday—$130 million—is Tuesday's Mega Millions drawing. And a $400 million prize is up for grabs the following eve.

The stars didn’t align for any lottery players over the weekend, which means ticket buyers in Georgia may be in even more of a frenzy this week.

An estimated total of $436 million had been up for grabs in two multi-state lotteries. But no one matched the winning numbers of 9-22-28-48-54 and Mega Ball 8 in Friday’s Mega Millions drawing, which left the jackpot of about $119 million unclaimed. An even bigger prize of an estimated $317 million will go unrewarded after no tickets matched Saturday’s Powerball winning numbers—1-17-25-37-44 and Powerball 20.

Now, both lotteries’ top prizes will get a bit bigger. As of early Monday, the jackpot for Tuesday’s Mega Millions drawing stood at $130 million, while Wednesday’s Powerball prize hovered at the $400 million mark.

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And it gets me to think that I’d like to win the lottery again. Not that I’m expecting to bank the $400 million Mega Millions jackpot Wednesday night, but clearly I’m not the only one hoping for such good fortune.

What would you do if you won Tuesday’s Mega Millions or Wednesday’s Powerball?


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I won the Fantasy 5 once. I bought the ticket at an East Cobb Chevron station on Sept. 30, 1998. I pinned it to a bulletin board and forgot about it.

I was working for the now defunct Atlanta Sports Weekly at the time. I remember going down to Miami in late January for Super Bowl XXXIII. You know, the only one the Falcons have ever played in. They were filming "Any Given Sunday" in South Florida at the time and I met Cameron Diaz. She said I was funny.

KISS performed before the game and Cher sang the National Anthem. But the Birds’ Eugene Robinson pulled his stunt and the Falcons blew it against the Broncos. I got back to Atlanta the next day sunburned, hungover and gimping around on a sprained ankle.

That’s when the publishers told me that there were no more funds and that they had to let me go. Bummed out, I went home and made a vodka drink. The next day, with nothing to do, I pulled that lottery ticket off the board. At the time, you couldn’t check numbers online. So I called the number and then read along as the computer-generated voice called out my five digits.

They give you 180 days to cash in those winning tickets before they go void. When I made the call, I was on day No. 151. The winning ticket was worth around $64,000 and after taxes, I took home about 43K. Good times.

For $1, players can try for Tuesday's Mega Millions jackpot. Powerball the next evening costs $2 per ticket. Proceeds from the lottery benefit education in Georgia. Since its first year, the Georgia Lottery Corp. has returned $14.6 billion to the state for programs including Georgia’s HOPE Scholarship Program and Georgia’s Pre-K Program. 


Patch Editor Jon Gargis contributed to this story.


Portions of this story appeared in a previous Patch article from February, 2012.


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