Comment Who Will Win the $1 Billion Mega Millions Jackpot? It’s one of the biggest questions in America after a winning six-number ticket went unsold in Tuesday night’s $830 million drawing, raising the next jackpot on Friday to about $1.025 billion, the third-highest total in the game’s history. Friday’s jackpot has an estimated cash payout of $602.5 million, according to Mega Millions, after 29 consecutive drawings without a winner matching all six numbers since April 15. website for more than two hours on Tuesday night. “We look forward to the growing jackpot,” Ohio Lottery Director Pat McDonald, the current chief executive officer of the Mega Millions consortium, said in a news release Wednesday. “Watching the jackpot build over months and reaching the billion dollar mark is breathtaking. We encourage customers to keep the game in balance and enjoy the ride.” McDonald added: “Somebody’s going to win.” But as players rush to get their Mega Millions tickets and dream big — the odds of matching all six numbers are about 1 in 303 million — another popular question is back in the spotlight for those already making unrealistic plans for their hypothetical $1 billion win: What would you do if you won the lottery? A history of past lottery winners shows a wide range of what players do with their winnings. Many have paid off their debts, bought homes and invested their money, while others have put the cash toward building a water park, gambling in Atlantic City or starting a women’s professional wrestling organization. Some adjusted to life as a multi-millionaire. Others say that the joy and excitement that came from unexpected sudden wealth soon turned to bad choices and sadness – and ruined their lives. “When you realize immediately that you have won, you are filled with excitement. You’re like, “Oh, my God, this is amazing, my life is going to change,” said Robert Pagliarini, who is president of California-based Pacifica Wealth Advisors and has worked with lottery winners. “This is immediately followed by anxiety and fear – ‘Oh my God, what am I doing?’ How will I handle this? My life can change and maybe not in a good way.’ “ Friday’s jackpot is well short of last year’s $1.05 billion Mega Millions jackpot, won by a single ticket shared by four members of a suburban Detroit lottery club. If no winning ticket is picked Friday, the Mega Millions jackpot will approach the record $1.5 billion prize won by a South Carolina player in 2018. The player, who also chose to remain anonymous, picked the lump sum of more than $877 million, according to the South Carolina Education Lottery Commission. Millions of players are expected to buy $2 tickets for this week’s Mega Millions, which is played in 45 states plus Washington and the US Virgin Islands. There were more than 6.7 million winning tickets across all levels for Tuesday’s drawing, according to Mega Millions, including nine tickets with winnings ranging from $1 million to $3 million each. With increased interest in the $1 billion jackpot and a sharp increase in tickets sold, it will be more likely that a person or multiple people will have a winning ticket after Friday’s drawing, said Mark Glickman, a senior lecturer in statistics at the University of Harvard. . “The big difference is when these jackpots get bigger and bigger, more people will be playing, so there’s a greater chance that someone will win,” Glickman said. “But that doesn’t mean any individual will have an improved chance. Once the pot reaches that range, there are enough people playing that the odds are that someone will pick the right number.” When players have picked the right lottery numbers, most are all paying off their debts or looking to buy homes for themselves or loved ones, Pagliarini said. He recalled a client who had gushed over a new home in the Malibu area that overlooked the Pacific Ocean. Some have celebrated their wealth through investments and non-traditional purchases or donations. In 2011, John Kutey and his wife, Linda, used part of the $28.7 million share of the $319 million Mega Millions winning ticket he bought with co-workers to build a water park in Green Island, Ne. York, to their credit. parents, according to the Albany Times Union. Louise White won a Rhode Island Powerball jackpot of more than $336 million after buying a rainbow sherbet in 2012 and started a trust for her family named after the dessert, “The Rainbow Sherbet Trust,” ABC News reported. Just this month, Crystal Dunn took her smallest winnings of more than $146,000 from an online Kentucky Lottery game and gave some of it to strangers in the form of a $100 grocery store gift card. He won the lottery. Then she shared her surprises with strangers. But for every feel-good story of unlikely lottery wins, there are other experiences that underscore why it’s important to have a financial advisor and attorney ready to help if someone hits it big, Pagliarini said. “There are so many stories of these lottery winners ending up with less money than when they started,” he said. “The big question and fear is, ‘Will I make it all?’ And they may still bring it all down.” After Evelyn Adams won the New Jersey Lottery wildly in 1985 and 1986, winning more than $5.4 million in total, her winnings were completely spent by 2012 due to gambling in Atlantic City and investment mistakes, according to Forbes. South Carolina native Jonathan Vargas, who was just 19 when he won a $35.3 million Powerball prize in 2008, put his winnings into Wrestlicious, a women’s professional wrestling promotion he founded. The show, which featured scantily clad performers who also did sketch comedy, lasted just one season and cost Vargas nearly $500,000, according to CBS News. “If I had to do it all over again, I would recommend that people sit on it for a year,” he said in 2016. “Really decide what they want to do with it.” While stories of lottery luck have been well-documented over the years, the endings of these tales vary. He won the $314 million Powerball jackpot. It ruined his life. Not long after William “Bud” Post won a $16.2 million jackpot in the Pennsylvania Lottery in 1988, his brother was arrested for hiring a hitman to kill him for the inheritance. Post later successfully sued an ex-girlfriend for a share of the profits and was $1 million in debt by the time he died in 2006. “Everyone dreams of making money, but no one realizes the nightmares that come from carpentry or the problems,” he said in 1993. In the case of Ronnie Music Jr., the $3 million he won from a Georgia Lottery scratch-off game in 2015 went toward the purchase and distribution of crystal meth. He pleaded guilty in 2016 to investing in a drug ring and was sentenced to 21 years in prison. Despite this week’s improbable $1 billion jackpot win and the history attached to some of the winners who have cashed in, it doesn’t stop people from wondering “what if?” Pagliarini plans to go to the store to get two tickets for him and his daughter, while Glickman, the Harvard professor, will continue to use his strategy of picking Mega Millions numbers completely at random. If he were to win, Glickman said he would like to buy a vacation home in La Jolla, California, where he just returned from vacation. But Glickman is candid in acknowledging his history playing the game means he, like millions of others, will have to put his lottery dreams on hold for a little while longer. “When I played last week, I had a ticket that I think I cashed in for $10 — and that’s the most I’ve ever won,” he said. “I go into this knowing full well that luck will not shine upon me.”
