Thousands turn to Google for Mega Millions lottery results
A record-breaking lottery jackpot in the United States prompted thousands of people to search the web for the results over the weekend in the hopes of claiming some of the life-changing sum.
The total jackpot for Friday's Mega Millions lottery was an enormous $656 million, or roughly €491 million. In total three people, who probably won't be at work on Monday, won a share of this massive prize.
The lottery fever that had been gripping the US in the run-up to Friday's draw pushed the search terms "mega millions numbers," "lottery mega numbers," "mega millions," "California lottery" and "Illinois lottery" -- the state in which one of the winners lived -- to the top of this week's Google Insights trends.
Data from Google shows that the majority of people searching for the number one term "mega millions numbers" came from West Virginia, while the majority of searches for "lottery mega numbers" and "mega millions" originated in Washington DC.
In case you still haven't checked your tickets the winning numbers were 2, 4, 23, 38, and 46 and the Mega Ball was 23.
Other search terms with a significant increase in growth over the past seven days were French job listing and advice site "Pole Emploi" and teenage pop star "Justin Bieber," who recently released his latest single "Boyfriend," which looks set to be his highest-ranking song to date on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
The search terms with the most significant growth worldwide in the last seven days, as measured by Google Insights and recorded April 2, were:
01. mega millions numbers (+1, 800%)
02. lottery mega numbers (+1,700%)
03. mega millions (+850%)
04. california lottery (+200%)
05. illinois lottery (+200%)+
06. facebook en espanol (+130%)
07. lottery (+130%)
08. justin bieber (+60%)
09. pole emploi (+60%)
10. bbc weather (+40%)
