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Lottery winner in a 'state of shock'
01:38 - Source: WSB

Story highlights

Winner, 56, will get $119,935,622.32 after taxes, CNN calculates

Ira Curry of Stone Mountain is the Georgia winner of half the $648 million jackpot

Two jackpot-winning tickets were sold, one in Georgia and one in California

20 people will win $1 million after matching the five non-Mega ball numbers

CNN  — 

A 56-year-old married woman has won half of the second-largest Mega Millions jackpot in U.S. history and has taken the cash option, which after taxes, will be about $120 million, Georgia Lottery President Debbie Alford said Wednesday.

Ira Curry, of Stone Mountain, came to the lottery office with the winning ticket of hand-picked numbers, a mix of family birthdays and the lucky number 7. She did not appear at the afternoon lottery announcement in Atlanta.

Curry bought the ticket at the end of the day Friday and it was a last-minute decision, Alford said.

Alford gave a few details about Curry, saying she is married and had her daughter check online for the winning numbers after a radio announcer mentioned 7 was the Mega ball number.

At least two people have matched the winning numbers in Tuesday night’s $636 million Mega Millions jackpot.

According to CNN’s calculation, the payout will net her $119,935,622.32.

It will take one to two weeks before Curry will get her check, Alford said.

One winning ticket was sold in Georgia, and the other was sold in California, lottery officials said.

“(Curry) had the radio on, and the announcer was talking about the Mega ball, which was seven,” Alford said. So Curry called her daughter and “between tears of joys and laughter,” the daughter relayed to her mother that she’d won, the lottery president said.

Curry told Alford, “I was in a state if disbelief. I still didn’t believe it when my daughter told me,” Alford said.

No lotteries in these 7 states

Alford said she suspects Curry called her boss to say she wouldn’t be coming in to work because Curry met with lottery officials between 11 a.m. and noon. Curry told lottery officials she hadn’t had time to think about what to do with the money.

The winning numbers were 8, 14, 17, 20 and 39, with a Megaball of 7.

Twenty ticket holders will win $1 million after matching all the numbers except the Mega ball.

Strong sales boosted the jackpot to $636 million from the previous estimate of $586 million, lottery officials announced late Tuesday morning.

That’s tantalizingly close to the U.S. record – a $656 million Mega Millions jackpot split by three winning tickets in March 2012.

This jackpot was so large in part because Mega Millions, in a sense, became tougher to win. The prize rises with each miss, and no one has won it since organizers increased the pool of numbers to choose from – making astronomical odds even longer – back in October.

The California winning ticket was sold at Jenny’s Gift Shop in a San Jose strip mall, lottery officials said.

You won the big one. Now what?

The chance of winning – never particularly bright – got worse in late October, when Mega Millions increased the drawing’s pool of numbers. The odds of hitting the jackpot, which were 1 in 176 million, are now 1 in 259 million.

You have more than 1,000 times better chance of an asteroid or comet killing you – and that’s using the longest estimated odds for the celestial bodies – according to Tulane University.

“Winning the Mega Millions is akin to getting struck by lightning at the same time you’re being eaten by a shark,” Todd Northrop, founder of Lotterypost.com, told CNN.

$800 million in lottery prizes unclaimed

Previously, lottery players chose five numbers, ranging from 1 to 56. It’s now 1 to 75, but the sixth, gold ball has fewer numbers from which to choose, as the pool decreased from 46 to 15.

  • Correction: CNN earlier reported that a store owner who sold one of the winning lottery tickets would win $1 million. That information was incorrect. CNN regrets the error.

    Mega Millions tickets are sold in 43 states – all but Alabama, Alaska, Hawaii, Mississippi, Nevada, Utah and Wyoming – plus the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

    Lottery winner gives $40 million to charity

    CNN’s Joseph Netto, Holly Yan, Chris Friedman, Christine Romans, Pamela Brown, Julie In, Devon Sayers and Eliott C. McLaughlin contributed to this report.