Mega Millions Mania grows as jackpot hits record total
Do you have lucky numbers ready for the Mega Millions jackpot? Buzz60s Mercer Morrison has the story.
A customer shows her bought Mega Millions lottery tickets at a retailer in Washington, DC, October 20, 2018. [Photo: ERIKSLESSEREPA-EFE]
] LOS ANGELES – Non-stop. Intense. Crazy.
These are some of the words used by food workers to describe the business during the past week – all because of the now-breaking Mega Millions jackpot of $ 1.6 billion, the biggest lottery prize in American history.
While the audience usually increases as the jackpot grows, more workers and ticket buyers told the US today that it has drawn the longest lines.
On a Chevron near the Los Angeles International Airport, workers said the line talked through the store on Friday, with around 700 people buying Mega Millions tickets. An clerk said that the line did not stop from 6 to 7, almost the whole shift.
Hype led Brittany Hadley, 31, from Ventura, California, to buy a lotto ticket for the first time on Sunday. Her uncle has played a lottery for as long as she can remember, but the biggest jackpot never drove the club's employee to get two Mega Millions tickets even after a trip.
"Everyone has talked about it," Hadley said. "So I was," Oh, why not try? " You never know."
A nearby Shell station sold so many Mega Millions tickets in the last week that they ran out of lotto papers. Around 2 o'clock Sunday, Tracy Turner's tutor had to call for more. Fortunately for lotto players, a lottery employee usually supplies the same day, she said.
"Mega Millions has already entered historic territory, but it's really amazing to believe that now the jackpot has reached a world record," Gordon Medenica, head of Mega Millions Group and MD of Maryland Lottery and Gaming, said in a statement . "It's hard to overestimate how exciting this is – but now it's going to be fun."
Medenica told The Washington Post that about 57 percent of the possible number combinations were bought in advance of Friday's drawing and that it was an "extremely pleasant surprise" there was no winner among the 280 million tickets.
"That means the odds were [a winning ticket] would have been picked, but it did not," said Medenica. "This is truly unknown territory for all of us."
Based on sales forecasts, 75 percent of the 302 million possible combinations will be selected for Tuesday's drawing, Associated Press reported Sunday.
"It's possible that nobody wins again. But it's hard to understand," said Carole Gentry, spokesman for Maryland Lottery and Gaming.
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Vinbearer Claudia Diaz said this is the busiest lottery award since she started working in liquor stores and convenience stores 10 years ago. 3 1/2 hours last, she said that 50 people bought Mega Million tickets at the Los Angeles store across the street from a grocery store.
In the hour before 7:00 PM PST sales cutoff that night, one person bought a ticket almost every minute at a 7-Eleven store in Culver City. Worker Ana Sorto recalled a customer who bought $ 452 worth of Mega Million tickets the week before when the jackpot was $ 548 million. She said that he was planning to give a ticket to everyone in the workplace, probably all 226 to $ 2 per ticket.
"They get crazy for lottery tickets," said Sorto's co-worker David Chavez.
For this Mega Millions jackpot, Lamont Smith, 46, in Los Angeles, has bought at least one ticket almost every day since it beat 100 million dollars. A regular lottery player, the advertising worker said he waits another 5 to 7 minutes in a row for this jackpot because of the crowd. Listening to people talks about what they want to do if they win is fun, Smith said.
If he wins, Smith plans to invest in municipal bonds and give his immediate family deductions for the rest of his life. At home in Philadelphia, he said he once won $ 346,000 from the Cash 5 lottery.
"When I go and put it under the scanner, the thrill is to see if you used to," Smith told the USA today on Sunday after buying lotto tickets. "It's a thrill when the digit comes up as you used. Whether it's $ 5 or $ 5000, it's just the excitement like," Oh, I won! ""
Mega Millions is played in 44 states, District of Columbia and US Virgin Islands.
Contributing: Associated Press
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