$1 million winning lottery ticket sat on SC man’s living room table for a month
A Midlands man found a winning $1 million prize in a stack of old lottery tickets, the South Carolina Education Lottery announced Friday.
When he realized, he told lottery officials he “didn’t believe it.”
The Mega Millions ticket had been lying on his living room table for more than a month, along with some other tickets he had been meaning to check. He bought it while grocery shopping at a Food Lion in Columbia, for the drawing on Jan. 16.
The numbers drawn were 2, 10, 42, 49, 54 and Megaball 13. The ticket matched the first five drawn, but missed the Megaball. The odds of winning $1 million playing Mega Millions are 1 in 12,607,306.
The winner isn’t in a hurry to cash in the ticket or spend the winnings, officials said. He and his wife decided to save the prize money for retirement.
“I’ll still play from time to time,” he told lottery officials. But he won’t be waiting so long to check his tickets.
The winner will be allowed to retain some privacy. South Carolina is one of 11 states — along with Arizona, Delaware, Georgia, Kansas, Maryland, New Jersey, North Dakota, Ohio, Texas and Virginia — that allow lottery winners to remain anonymous.
The Food Lion on Leesburg Road received a commission of $10,000, lottery officials said.
The estimated Mega Millions jackpot for Friday night’s drawing is $331 million.
