When purchasing a Mega Millions ticket at Fast & Friendly, 243 S. Main St. in Licking, a Missouri Lottery player chose to add the Megaplier option to his ticket for the Jan. 28 drawing.
After checking the winning numbers, the winner was pleasantly surprised to learn his own hand-picked numbers – 10, 19, 31, 47 and 56 with a Mega Ball number of 6 – matched four of the five white-ball numbers, as well as the Mega Ball drawn. Because the Megaplier number drawn that night was 5, his base prize of $10,000 was automatically multiplied by five for a total prize of $50,000.
“I put a note on the ticket, ‘Make sure nothing happens to this one’ for my wife,” the winner chuckled. “She started jumping up and down and asked, ‘Are you serious?!’”
Mega Millions is a multi-state draw game with drawings held every Tuesday and Friday at 10 p.m. This Friday’s estimated jackpot is $165 million.
In FY24, players in Texas County won more than $7.2 million in Missouri Lottery prizes, retailers received more than $420,000 in commissions and bonuses, and more than $3 million in Lottery proceeds went to education programs in the county.
