LINCOLN, Neb. — A Nebraska man's last-minute decision to buy a lottery ticket with his lunch paid off big time.
Brant Edgington stopped in to the Baker's grocery store in Fremont, Nebraska, to pick up a salad for the next day and decided to buy a few Mega Millions tickets for the March 22 drawing.
One of those matched all five winning numbers but not the Mega Ball to win $1 million, according to the Nebraska Lottery.
While his family are avid lottery players, Edgington, a single father, said he only buys tickets when the jackpot gets high and wasn't expecting to buy a ticket at all that day. The jackpot for that drawing was $977 million. He didn't check the results until the following Saturday, when he tried to use a scanner to cash them in for any winnings. When the Check-a-Ticket scanner wouldn't read it, he asked an employee for help.
“They disappeared for a minute,” Edgington told the Nebraska Lottery. “Then a different lady came up with her and they just stared at me. She told me, ‘Don’t pass out when I tell you this.’”
Edgington claimed his prize on April 5.
Mega Millions and Powerball, the two largest lottery games in the United States, have both had winners take home jackpots larger than $1 billion in the last month. A Powerball player in Oregon won a jackpot worth more than $1.3 billion on Sunday, April 7, and a single ticket in New Jersey won a $1.13 billion Mega Millions prize on March 26.
What are the largest US lottery jackpots ever won?
- $2.04 billion: Powerball - Nov. 7, 2022 – CA
- $1.76 billion – Oct. 11, 2023
- $1.586 billion: Powerball – Jan. 13, 2016 – CA, FL, TN
- $1.58 billion: Mega Millions – Aug. 8, 2023 – FL
- $1.537 billion: Mega Millions – Oct. 23, 2018 - SC
- $1.35 billion: Mega Millions - Jan. 13, 2023 - ME
- $1.337 billion: Mega Millions - July 29, 2022 - IL
- $1.326 billion: Powerball – April 7, 2024 - OR
- $1.13 billion: Mega Millions - March 26, 2024 - NJ
- $1.08 billion: Powerball – July 19, 2023 – CA