3
$1.602 billion — Mega Millions, August 2023
The biggest Mega Millions ever, won in a Florida beach town on a single ticket.
$1.602bnCash option: $794.2 million.
Thirty-one consecutive draws with no winner. By the end, the jackpot had been the lead story on national news for a fortnight and ticket queues were out of the door.
The ticket came from a Publix supermarket in Neptune Beach, Florida — a town of about seven thousand people. Florida law lets a winner of a prize this size stay anonymous for ninety days, and then the name is public.