$1.1B Mega Millions prize also can be winner for retailers
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — An estimated $1.1 billion Mega Millions jackpot drawing Tuesday night has people lined up at convenience stores nationwide to buy tickets in longshot hopes of winning a massive prize, but shop and gas station owners selling the tickets also have a chance at a big-figure bonus.
State lotteries usually reward the owners of business that sell winning jackpot tickets thousands of dollars or even up to $1 million, even before those giant prizes are claimed.
FIRST THINGS FIRST, WHAT’S THE LATEST ON THE JACKPOT?
It seems no one can win the Mega Millions jackpot, so it keeps getting larger. The last time someone overcame the odds of 1 in 302.6 million and won the top prize was on Oct. 14. Since then there have been 24 straight drawings without anyone snagging the jackpot. The prize now ranks as the fifth-largest, though it’s still only about half the size of a record $2.04 billion Powerball jackpot, won only a couple months ago by someone in California.
While it seems like forever since someone won, it's quite a ways from the record of 41 straight drawings that has occurred a couple of times, most recently leading up to that $2.04 billion California prize.
AND WHO IS THE LUCKY CALIFORNIAN?
That remains a mystery. The California Lottery hasn’t announced a winner and says its policy is to not acknowledge whether anyone has claimed a prize until a supposedly winning ticket is vetted. All that’s clear is that a ticket matching all six numbers drawn Nov. 9 was sold at Joe’s Service Center in Altadena, an unincorporated community northeast of Los Angeles.
ONE WINNER IN ALTADENA IS CLEAR.
Even if we don’t know anything about the Powerball winner, we know the service center owner, Joe Chahayed, was paid his $1 million bonus by lottery officials. Standing...
