A look at the 10 highest US lottery jackpots
Not that there aren’t large jackpots elsewhere. Spain’s massively popular Christmas lottery, known as “El Gordo,” is ranked as the world’s richest, though it doles out a single jackpot among millions of prizes, instead of one large jackpot like the Powerball. El Gordo last month showered 2.2 billion euros ($2.4 billion) across the country.
As for the U.S., here’s a look at the 10 previous highest jackpots and where the winners were from:
1. $656.0 million, Mega Millions, March 30, 2012 (three tickets from Kansas, Illinois and Maryland)
2. $636 million, Mega Millions, Dec. 17, 2013, (two tickets, from California and Georgia)
3. $590.5 million, Powerball, May 18, 2013 (one ticket from Florida)
4. $587.5 million, Powerball, Nov. 28, 2012 (two tickets from Arizona and Missouri)
5. $564.1 million, Powerball, Feb. 11, 2015 (three tickets, from North Carolina, Puerto Rico and Texas)
6. $448.4 million, Powerball, Aug. 7, 2013, (three tickets, one from Minnesota and two from New Jersey)
7. $425.3 million, Powerball, Feb. 19, 2014 (one ticket from California)
8. $414 million, Mega Millions, March 18, 2014, (two tickets from Florida and Maryland)
9. $399.4 million, Powerball, Sept. 18, 2013, (one ticket from South Carolina)
10. $390.0 million, Mega Millions, March 6, 2007 (two tickets from Georgia and New Jersey)
The jackpot is so big that billboards around the country have to advertise the price as $999 million because they’re not built to show billions. The lottery computers will handle the decimal point without a problem.