Mega Millions

A single winning ticket for a record Powerball lottery jackpot worth $590.5 million was sold in Florida, organizers said late Saturday, but there was no word about who won. The winning numbers from Saturday night's drawing were: 10, 13, 14, 22 and 52, with a Powerball number of 11. The odds of winning were put at one in 175 million. The winning ticket was sold at a Publix supermarket in Zephyrhills, a suburb of Tampa, according to the Florida Lottery. The prize tempted many Marylanders to buy tickets for the lottery game before the 11 p.m. drawing.

A single winning ticket for a record Powerball lottery jackpot worth $590.5 million was sold in Florida, organizers said late Saturday, but there was no word about who won. The winning numbers from Saturday night's drawing were: 10, 13, 14, 22 and 52, with a Powerball number of 11. The odds of winning were put at one in 175 million. The winning ticket was sold at a Publix supermarket in Zephyrhills, a suburb of Tampa, according to the Florida Lottery. The prize tempted many Marylanders to buy tickets for the lottery game before the 11 p.m. drawing.

Maryland sold one of the winning tickets for last night's record-breaking $640 million Mega Millions jackpot, lottery officials said. The lucky ticket was purchased around 7:15 p.m. Friday at a 7-Eleven in Baltimore County in the 8000 block of Liberty Road in Milford Mill. The winner bought one ticket with randomly selected numbers just a few hours before sales ended. The jackpot is considered the single largest in world history, according to lottery officials. The Maryland winner will split the prize with winners in Kansas and Illinois, the Los Angeles Times reported.

A Mount Airy woman won a $26 million Mega Millions jackpot this week, state lottery officials announced, and the grandmother of two now plans to buy her first home - a beach house. Maryland Lottery officials said the 48-year-old woman wished to remain anonymous. She is the first to win a Mega Millions jackpot in nearly a year, since three Maryland public school employees split the $218.6 million portion of a record-breaking $656 million jackpot. According to the state lottery, the woman's fiancee jokingly told her as they went to bed Tuesday night that they would wake up millionaires.

Friends and readers, I have plenty of vices. For example, I like bad movies and deep fried food, especially with extra cheese. Put a giant screen at a county fair and I'm in heaven. But I have never been able to get excited about playing the lottery --- even when the Mega Millions jackpot hits $312 million . I really did give it a try. I bought tickets once or twice and participated in one or two organized pools when the millions on the billboard visible from an office window hit triple digits.

The air went out of Mirlande Wilson's tale about a Mega Million's jackpot ticket hidden at a Windsor Mill McDonald's Tuesday, when lottery officials announced that the actual winners have come forward - and produced the winning ticket. The timing likely will save Wilson a court battle. Wilson, a 37-year-old mother of seven, was sued Monday in Baltimore City Circuit Court by Mandisa Mazibuko of Germantown in an attempt to block Wilson from cashing. Mazibuko also sought $1 million in damages, plus interest and court costs.

Are you rich beyond your wildest dreams? The winning numbers for the $640 million Mega Millions jackpot are: 2, 4, 23, 38, 46 and Mega Ball 23. If no winner is named, the jackpot will rise to $975 million, but lottery officials said they would know if someone had won before the night is through. All week, Baltimore has been abuzz about the record-breaking jackpot and on Friday the excitement peaked. On his way out the door at the 7-Eleven on W. 33 r d Street and Keswick Road on Friday, a man looked over his shoulder and told Sara Mathes that he'd wish her luck on Mega Millions, but, you know, "I want to win. " Mathes of Charles Village and her friend, Jessica Vezendy of Middletown, Del., were part of the frenzy across Maryland for a chance at the $640 million Mega Millions jackpot, which grew by $100 million since Thursday.

If the three Maryland public school educators want to hold onto a sense of normalcy after Tuesday's announcement that they are splitting a share of the record-breaking Mega Millions jackpot, experts say they should stay tight-lipped. For now, "The Three Amigos," as they call themselves, have allowed lottery officials to reveal only the barest details about their identities: a woman in her 20s, a man in his 40s, and a woman in her 50s. The Marylanders work in three different schools, as a special education teacher, an elementary school teacher and a school administrative worker.

If you're looking to strike it rich, you still have a shot if you buy a ticket for the Mega Millions drawing Friday night. No one matched all six numbers in Tuesday's drawing, so the jackpot for Friday climbed to $290 million, according to the Maryland Lottery. Tuesday night's winning numbers were 1, 4, 6, 11 and 14, and the Mega Ball was 30. One person from Maryland won $250,000 by matching the first five numbers without the Mega Ball, lottery officials said. The Mega Millions top prize has been on the rise since a Georgia woman won a $72 million jackpot in late January.

The great mystery of Maryland's Mega Millions winner remained unsolved Monday morning. Lottery officials said the winner had yet to come forward, but they have been "inundated" by rumors about the unknown winner. They countered claims in some publications that a likely winner had been identified as a Westport woman who worked at an area McDonald's. "As anticipated, we're still waiting," said Carole Everett, lottery spokeswoman. "We do not expect this woman to come walking through the door this morning.

The single winning ticket in Tuesday night's Mega Millions drawing - for a jackpot of $26 million - was purchased at a gas station in Mount Airy, according to lottery officials. The top tier ticket was bought at the Mount Airy Shell station in the 600 block of Lakeview Drive, which is in Frederick County, according to Erica Palmisano, a lottery spokeswoman. No one had claimed the winnings, which can also be taken as a $19 million cash payout, as of Wednesday morning, shortly before the lottery's claim center opened at 8:30 a.m., Palmisano said.

Imagine marrying the love of your life and winning the lottery a few weeks later. This is exactly what happened to Debby Opper, 51, of Owings Mills, last month. On Dec. 1, Opper married Hassan Manafikhalesi, 58, at a ceremony and reception at Martin's West in Baltimore. And on Dec. 28, she won $250,000 in the Mega Millions prize drawing. "It's been quite a month for us," says Opper. The two met at a singles dance about six years ago. When Manafikhalesi popped the question in October 2012, the couple quickly went to work planning a wedding but hadn't scheduled a lengthy honeymoon because Opper was taking care of her mother, who lived in a nursing home.

Saturday's Powerball jackpot has rolled up to $214 million after a $50 million Delaware winner in early October. The last Maryland winner of the Powerball jackpot was a Cecil county couple who won $128.8 million on Christmas eve. That was the second-largest winning ticket ever sold in the state, according to the lottery. The first Powerball win in Maryland was by an Abingdon couple in September, 2011. They claimed $108.8 million. The winners of all those big payouts have remained anonymous, according to the lottery website.

A group of 14 McDonald's employees from the Baltimore area are still convinced they were winners in the massive $656 million Mega Millions jackpot drawing earlier this year - despite being told otherwise by lottery officials - and are claiming that a co-worker defrauded the Maryland Lottery to avoid sharing a payout with them. On Sept. 19, the group filed a civil lawsuit against their co-worker, Mirlande Wilson, a Westport woman who briefly gained celebrity status and international media attention in April after claiming to be the holder of a winning ticket purchased in Baltimore County.

Nicholas Ruth's lottery ticket held the winning numbers for a Mega Millions second-tier prize — $250,000 — and he didn't even know it. The Towson resident bought a ticket was at 7-Eleven, on Loch Raven Boulevard, and didn't check his numbers until late Saturday night. Even then, he wasn't sure. "I checked it about eight times before I realized all the numbers matched," Ruth said. "My mom checked it another 15 times. We got all excited and started jumping up and down. " He then called his brother at 1:30 a.m. The Archbishop Curley High graduate started buying lottery tickets every Tuesday and Friday when he turned 18. Winning was never a possibility, he thought, but it was the idea that kept him hooked.

While Marylanders are consumed with the debate over whether to allow a sixth casino and table games like poker and blackjack, the state is quietly moving ahead with an idea that could make gambling much more pervasive: Internet lottery sales. And in contrast to the state's casino program, which has been playing catch-up with neighboring states for years, the State Lottery Agency is contemplating plans that would instantly catapult Maryland to the cutting edge of this new frontier of gambling - all without the General Assembly ever taking a direct vote on the issue.

A group of 14 McDonald's employees from the Baltimore area are still convinced they were winners in the massive $656 million Mega Millions jackpot drawing earlier this year - despite being told otherwise by lottery officials - and are claiming that a co-worker defrauded the Maryland Lottery to avoid sharing a payout with them. On Sept. 19, the group filed a civil lawsuit against their co-worker, Mirlande Wilson, a Westport woman who briefly gained celebrity status and international media attention in April after claiming to be the holder of a winning ticket purchased in Baltimore County.

With this week's Mega Millions pot holding a record-breaking $500 million prize, one could head to the closest quickie mart and leave the numbers up to the lottery machine gods.  Or.... one could attempt a bit of strategy. And who better to predict such a thing than one of the Baltimore area's card-carrying psychics? We got on the phone this morning to see if any of them were getting a divine line on Friday's drawing. First we called Savetta Stevens, a psychic with a shop in Mount Washington.

The air went out of Mirlande Wilson's tale about a Mega Million's jackpot ticket hidden at a Windsor Mill McDonald's Tuesday, when lottery officials announced that the actual winners have come forward - and produced the winning ticket. The timing likely will save Wilson a court battle. Wilson, a 37-year-old mother of seven, was sued Monday in Baltimore City Circuit Court by Mandisa Mazibuko of Germantown in an attempt to block Wilson from cashing. Mazibuko also sought $1 million in damages, plus interest and court costs.

Most of us will likely never know the names of the three Maryland educators who shared in the record-breaking Mega Millions jackpot. They have chosen to remain anonymous, which is their right under state law and probably a shrewd choice given the history of lottery winners and the considerable size of their sudden good fortune. But even in their secrecy, the school system employees couldn't help but reveal something important to the rest of us - a life lesson, if you will. They told Maryland lottery officials that they intend to stay in their chosen careers.