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One person from Illinois wins the $1.34 billion Mega Millions jackpot.

Mega Millions officials said that the huge $1.34 billion jackpot was won by just one lucky person who bought their ticket at a gas station in Illinois. This is the third largest jackpot in US history.

Harold Mays, who runs the Illinois Lottery, said that the ticket was sold at the Speedy Café Speedway in Des Plaines.

“We have not heard from the winner yet,” Mays said during a Saturday press conference.

A single winner claimed the whole $1.34 billion Mega Millions jackpot prize.
REUTERS/Jeenah Moon

“We don’t know whether or not they’re aware they’ve won a prize. So I encourage everyone to check your ticket.”

The numbers that won the drawing on Friday were 67, 45, 57, 36, and 13. The Mega Millions ball was number 14.

The mystery winner has a year from the drawing to claim their Mega-prize, and they have 60 days to decide whether they want their money in cash or in annual installments.

So many people were interested in the growing pot that it grew by nearly $60 million between Friday night and Saturday morning, before the winner was announced.

A second-place winning ticket was bought at New Way Deli & Lottery Corp. on East Kingsbridge Road in the Bronx. It was worth a relatively small $1,002,002.
Speedway Gas Station in Des Plaines, Ill where the winning Mega Millions ticket was purchase, for the 1.3 Billion jackpot. Saturday, July 30, 2022. Photos Eli Branson
Speedway Gas Station in Des Plaines, where the winning Mega Millions ticket was purchased.
Eli Branson
Andres Fernandez sells Mega Millions lottery tickets at a Chevron station in Oakland Park, Fla., on Friday, July 29, 2022.
Only one man won the Mega Millions $1.34 billion prize.
Amy Beth Bennett/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP
A worker at the deli whose name is Big Al said, "We feel lucky." "We've done this before. "It's a lovely thing."

"Lightning rarely strikes the same place twice. Hope it's the big one next time," said the worker, who remembered selling a winning lottery ticket worth $1 million there five years ago.

But most of the people who went there were sad that they weren't among the big winners.

"It wasn't me, and I play here all the time," said Daisy Braxton, who had come to check her ticket against the winning numbers and buy another one.
A man in the Bronx snatched a second place ticket at the New Way Deli & Lottery Corp.
A man in the Bronx snatched a second place ticket at the New Way Deli & Lottery Corp.
Tomas E. Gaston
Mays said that the winner can choose to get the $1.34 billion over 29 years or the $780 million cash prize all at once, before taxes.

He also said that the gas station in Illinois where the winning ticket was bought will get a $500,000 "selling bonus" for selling the ticket.

Workers at the gas station didn't want to say anything.

The jackpot was the second-largest in the history of Mega Millions, after a winner in South Carolina won $1.537 billion on Oct. 23, 2018. No one knows who will win.

The Powerball jackpot of $1.586 billion, which was won on January 13, 2016, set a new world record. Winners from California, Florida, and Tennessee all got a piece of it.

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