Explored – The Biggest Lottery Winners of 2024

Whisper it quietly, but lottery players are bracing themselves for another potential jackpot win as 2024 draws to a close. As it stands, the latest Mega Millions jackpot continues to grow stateside, inching towards the $700 million mark after nobody claimed all six numbers during Tuesday night’s drawing on December 10th.

The latest jackpot has rolled since September 10th, with the potential lump sum payment now likely to be in excess of $300 million. So, the best lottery sites are sure to see increased demand as the jackpot prize grows, especially as tickets can be procured for as little as $5. There have already been three Mega Millions jackpot victors in 2024 alone, one of which was among the biggest lottery winners of all time. However, we’ll touch on this a little later in the piece.

• A Look Back at the Biggest Ever Lottery Winners
• The Phantom Winner – One of the Big Lottery Winners Who Never Was?
• A Texan Payout – Heralding the Seventh-Biggest Mega Millions Win of All-Time
• Winning Big in Illinois – Another Huge Mega Millions Payout
• Reporting an Unclaimed $139.3 Million Prize in Ohio
• Last but Not Least – A ‘Breathtaking’ $19.4 Million Jackpot in Ohio

A Look Back at the Biggest Ever Lottery Winners

Before we delve a little deeper into this year’s big lottery winners, we’re going to provide a little context by exploring the largest-ever payouts. Make no mistake; various lotteries have created billionaires in the not-to-distant past, with the Powerball and Mega Millions draws among the most lucrative. So, here’s a look back at the biggest lottery winners of all time!

• $2.04 billion in November, 2022: The biggest lottery jackpot ever was won on November 7th, 2022, with Edwin Castro’s Powerball ticket earning him a cool $2.04 billion. A resident of Altadena, California, Castro received his payout on Valentine’s Day, 2023, having opted for a lump-sum prize of $997.6 million rather than being paid the full amount over a period of years. No further information was released about Castro, who capitalized on laws that safeguard the privacy of lottery winners in the US.
• $1.765 billion in October, 2023: Less than a year later in October, 2023, another lucky Powerball player claimed a $1.765 billion jackpot prize. The winning ticket was sold at the Midway Market & Liquor in Frazier Park, CA, with local man Theodorus Struyck eventually coming forward to claim the jackpot. He also claimed to represent a larger group of people who would share the spoils, while he opted for a lump sum payout of $774.1 million rather than receiving the full amount in annuities.
• $1.59 billion in January, 2016: The third highest winning lottery prize was awarded on January 13th, 2016, when matching tickets were procured in Chino Hills, California, Munford, Tennessee and Melbourne Beach on the Atlantic Coast. This meant that the $1.59 billion was actually paid out in three equal payments of $528 million, which as California Lottery spokesperson Russ Lopez opined, is an amount that we could live on relatively comfortably!

These incredible payouts highlight the life-changing potential of lotteries such as the Powerball, with $2 and $5 tickets able to turn anybody into a multi-millionaire overnight. Lottery draws also deliver a number of seismic payouts every year, and 2024 has proved no exception to this rule. But who have been the largest lottery winners this year? Let’s find out!

The Phantom Winner – One of the Big Lottery Winners Who Never Was?

Curiously, one of the biggest lottery winners in 2024 has not only remained anonymous, but also failed to claim their prize. One lucky player in the state of New Jersey purchased a single winning ticket in the Mega Millions draw on March 26th, with the jackpot having reached an impressive $1.28 billion since the last winner had been declared on December 8th, 2023.

The ticket was purchased at a Saker ShopRite Liquor in Neptune Township, NJ, but despite numerous pleas from lottery officials, more than eight months have passed without the buyer coming forward. Worryingly, the winner only has until March 26th, 2025 to claim their winnings (either in the form of a lump sum or annuity) before the deadline passes and the ticket becomes null and void.

Of course, it’s not unusual for jackpot winners to take their time when contacting lottery authorities, while smaller prizes often go unclaimed. However, it’s strange for a payout of this size and scale to go unclaimed for such an extended period of time, and it’s becoming increasingly likely that the most sizable jackpot in 2024 will be returned to the lottery fund early next year.

However, the good news is that the owner of the Saker ShopRite stores will receive a $30,000 bonus for selling the winning ticket. Richard Saker will accept the payment, and has already confirmed that the full amount will be donated to local area food banks through the brand’s ‘Partners in Caring’ program.

A Texan Payout – Heralding the Seventh-Biggest Mega Millions Win of All-Time

Another of this year’s big lottery winners also earned the right to claim a significant jackpot payout by purchasing a Mega Millions ticket. The ticket was bought as recently as September, while it matched all six draw numbers (plus the gold ‘Mega Ball’) to secure an impressive prize of $810 million.

The final payout was updated based on actual ticket sales, while it can once again be claimed in full through annuities or as a single lump sum worth $409.3 million. The winning ticket was procured at Murphy USA 8848 in Sugar Land, Texas, while it’s the 15th Mega Millions jackpot won in the state since it first joined the game in December 2003.

We may never know the identity of the victor, as Texas is one of 17 states that allows lottery winners to remain completely anonymous. Interestingly, however, this Mega Millions jackpot is by far the largest ever won in the month of September, while it also has the distinction of being the seventh biggest in the game’s history.

In addition to the jackpot winning ticket, it should be noted that the September draw also yielded an additional 2.109 million payouts. These included four tickets that matched five white balls and shared a $1 million second-tier prize. Countrywide, a total of 47 tickets triggered the game’s third-tier payout of $10,000 or more.

Winning Big in Illinois – Another Huge Mega Millions Payout

Next up is the third Mega Millions jackpot of 2024, which was sandwiched between the as yet unclaimed victories in New Jersey and Texas. However, this particular payout has been claimed by the lucky winner, who won a cool $552 million after playing the game online. This payout also has the distinction of being the biggest in the history of the iLottery stateside!

Although the winner has so far retained his anonymity, he has been dubbed the “MEGA Millionaire” by the media in his home state of Illinois. During the draw on June 4th, 2024, he matched all five ticket numbers and the ‘Mega Ball’, but remained oblivious to his fate until he scrolled his emails shortly afterwards.

“I was scrolling through my emails when I saw one from the Illinois Lottery saying to check my numbers because I won a prize,” he said during a subsequent interview. He had previously won nominal prizes worth up to $5, so assumed that he would be in line for a similar payout this time around too.

“So,” he continued, “you can imagine my shock and disbelief when I saw that I had won the jackpot amount of $552 million. I had to quit the app and sign back in to double check and make sure it was real.” There’s no doubt that his win and multi-million-dollar payout was genuine, although only he will know whether the scale of his success has actually sunk in yet.

At the time, this payout was the ninth-largest Mega Millions jackpot prize in the history of the game, although the September win in Texas has since relegated it to 10th place. However, it remains somewhat short of the record lottery prize claimed in the state of Illinois, when a ticket purchased at a gas station in Des Plaines won a quite staggering jackpot of $1.337 billion.

In addition to one lucky winner banking $552 million, the state of Illinois also did well out of the June draw. More specifically, the Mega Millions jackpot roll that commenced on March 26th generated close to $28 million in cumulative ticket sales, which in turn yielded $11 million for the Common School Fund and K-12 education within the state.

Reporting an Unclaimed $139.3 Million Prize in Ohio

Following a Powerball draw on Wednesday, July 3, 2024, it was revealed that a single ticket had won the jackpot prize of $139.3 million. Although this is much smaller than some of the victories included earlier in the piece, it’s still a sizable payout and one that you would have expected to be claimed shortly afterwards.

The ticket was purchased in a Walmart store at 7680 Brandt Pike in Huber Heights, with the winning numbers of 2, 26, 33, 55, 57 (Powerball 22) having been auto-generated. The holder was one of 10,773 winners in the draw, although no other ticket was able to claim a prize in excess of $200.

Fast forward five months, however, and this fortunate Walmart shopper has yet to come forward and claim their prize. Like their contemporary in New Jersey, they’re also running out of time to file a claim too, as the rules dictating Powerball payouts vary significantly when compared with Mega Millions draws.

While Mega Millions jackpot winners and victors have one year to claim their payout from the date they purchased their ticket, Powerball players are afforded just 180 days (or six months). So, the ticket holder from Ohio has less than a month until January 3rd, 2025 to make a claim, and officials are doing everything in their power to achieve a positive resolution before the deadline.

Last but Not Least – A ‘Breathtaking’ $19.4 Million Jackpot in Ohio

Finally, we come to another jackpot win in the state of Ohio, which occurred following a Classic Lotto draw on November 27th. One lucky ticket holder was able to bank a hefty payout of $19.4 million, and while she has so far remained anonymous, she was very quick to come forward and make her claim.

The winner revealed: “I always play my kids’ birthdays alongside a couple random draws. This time, it was one of the draws that hit.” The winning numbers were 1, 5, 15, 34, 37 and 40, and upon checking her ticket online after the draw, the victor “held their breath for a very long time” and found the whole experience to be “quite a shock.”

Unlike most of the winners on this list (and the majority of all lottery victors), this particular woman chose to take the annuity prize. This means that she’ll bank the full jackpot amount, but in equal payments over a period of 30 years. This arguably makes sense given the smaller scale of the payout, while she has pledged to use the cash to pay bills, switch from an apartment to a new house and take care of her children.

According to the Classic Lotto organizers, the odds of winning the draw’s jackpot are around one in 13,983,816. So, this lucky victor undoubtedly defied the odds, with the ticket in question having been purchased at the aptly-named Winners Corner at 2036 Baltimore-Reynoldsburg Road in Reynoldsburg. This is located slightly to the east of the Columbus area.

Payouts of this size are far more common than some of the bigger jackpots recorded in 2024, while they also have the potential to be life-changing and create incredible opportunities for winners. As lottery organizers are quick to remind us, however, it’s always important to check your tickets and make sure that you don’t miss out on potential winnings!