Mega Millions Drawing Yields One $230M Winner

STEPHENS CITY, Va. -- Only one ticket matched all six numbers in Friday's $230 million Mega Millions lottery, the biggest single prize in the game's history.

Nobody stepped forward Saturday to claim the winning ticket, which was sold at the Red Apple convenience store here, a few miles south of Winchester and about 80 miles west of Washington, D.C.

Lottery officials estimated the ticket would be worth more than $230 million, driven higher by big sales on Friday. Virginia Lottery spokesman Ed Scarborough said the exact amount would not be known until Monday morning, because the jackpot is based on the bond market.

The jackpot makes the unidentified ticket holder the biggest winner in the eight-year history of the Mega Millions game, which began in 1996 as the Big Game. The previous record was $197 million, set April 6, 1999. That winning ticket was sold in Massachusetts.

Virginia Lottery director Penelope Kyle said Friday's jackpot was the second largest single-ticket jackpot winner sold in any lottery in the United States. The biggest was the Powerball jackpot of $314.9 million, won on Christmas Day 2002 by Jack Whitaker, of Scott Depot, W.Va.

The winning numbers were 1-13-20-21-30, and the Mega Ball was 24.

At the Red Apple, workers tried to recall who might have bought the winning ticket, and said they were rooting for some of their regular customers. A sign inside the store greeted customers: "Congratulations! To whomever won MegaMillions. Stay Tuned!"

"I always tell them, 'Don't forget who sold you this ticket.' We'll see if they're true to their word," said sales clerk P.J. Thomas, who reported brisk business Friday, with most people buying $10 or less worth of tickets, with a few buying up to $300 worth.

"Oh my gosh, you don't know how excited we are, and we didn't even win the ticket," said Vangy Robinson, a clerk at the store. The store's owner, Harry Stimpson, will receive $25,000 for selling the ticket. Workers were quick to recall that Stimpson handed out bonuses back in 1991 when he received a $5,000 check for selling a $5.4 million winning Virginia Lotto ticket.

Word spread quickly about the store's brush with good fortune, and customers stopped in to talk about the jackpot or joke that they had been the winner.

Joe Powell said he woke up Saturday to a phone call from a friend that the winning ticket had been sold in Stephens City. He hadn't yet checked his tickets, and he instantly knew that his odds had improved dramatically from 1 in 135 million.

Asked about his thoughts as he checked his tickets, he responded, "What would you be thinking? I was thinking I might be a winner. If I were a winner, some things would change around here, that's for sure."

Stephens City is a small town with a population of about 1,100, but its location alongside Interstate 81 draws a significant number of out-of-state customers to the Red Apple, employees said.

There were 56 second-place winners, matching all five lotto numbers but not the Mega Ball to win $175,000 each. And 209 people matched four lotto numbers, plus the Mega Ball number, for a payout of $5,000 each.