Where was the winning mega million ticket sold

A winning Mega Millions ticket sold in Fort Myers, Florida, is offering a glimmer of hope to an area still struggling to rebuild weeks after Hurricane Ian unleashed a fury of destruction and devastation.

Two lucky Mega Millions tickets matched all six numbers in Friday's drawing — 9, 22, 26, 41, 44 and the Mega Ball, 19 — for a prize totaling $494 million.

One ticket was sold in California and the other at a 7-Eleven convenience store on Colonial Boulevard in Fort Myers, the Florida Lottery announced Monday. The winners will split the jackpot for about $247 million each.

"This win feels slightly more meaningful," Florida Lottery officials said in a statement.

It is the third time the state had a Mega Millions jackpot winner, according to the lottery agency.

As of Tuesday morning, neither winner had stepped forward to claim the prize.

In Florida, jackpot winners have 180 days from the date of drawing to claim their prizes but only 60 days after the winning draw date to collect a lump-sum cash payment, which in this case would be $123.95 million.

In California, the winning ticket was sold at a 7-Eleven on Kooser Road in San Jose, California Lottery officials tweeted. The winner has one year to come forward.

7-Eleven said it is thrilled by the news.

"We’ve always known our customers across the nation are winners! We couldn’t be happier that these extra lucky customers won in 7-Eleven stores in Fort Myers, FL and San Jose, CA," a spokesperson said in a statement.

The winning ticket in Florida was sold weeks after Ian, a Category 4 hurricane, slammed into the state on Sept. 28. More than 130 deaths have been attributed to the storm, according to an NBC News count based on statements by local and state authorities, making the storm Florida’s deadliest hurricane since 1935.

Fort Myers was one of the hardest-hit areas. One resident said she hopes the Mega Millions winner will give some of the money to a local charity to help people still struggling to get on their feet.

"We were all affected in some way," she told NBC News’ Kerry Sanders. "So it would be a nice thing to do, nice gesture."

Another resident said she was just happy that some good news was coming from the Fort Myers area.

"After Hurricane Ian and [its] devastations, it's kind of nice to know that somebody was able to win that kind of money," she said.

State lottery officials said they hope the winnings can "have a positive impact" on the area.

Minyvonne Burke is a senior breaking news reporter for NBC News.

A winning Mega Millions ticket was sold in an area slammed by Hurricane Ian

One of two winning lottery tickets was sold in Fort Myers, Fla. The other ticket was sold in San Jose, Calif. The winners will share the $494 million jackpot — about $247 million.

LEILA FADEL, HOST:

Good morning. I'm Leila Fadel. The odds of hitting the jackpot in the Powerball or Mega Millions lottery are 1 in 292 million - not great. So it's pretty wild that one of the winning tickets in Friday's Mega Millions jackpot was sold at a 7-Eleven in Fort Myers. Three weeks ago, Hurricane Ian made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane in southwestern Florida, destroying thousands of homes. Now someone in Florida just won $247 million. This is MORNING EDITION.

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One sole winning jackpot ticket was sold in a Speedway convenience store in Des Plaines, Illinois, in a historic $1.34 billion drawing, according to Mega Millions.

One ticket matched all six numbers in Friday night's drawing. The winning numbers were 67, 45, 57, 36, 13 and the mega ball was 14.

The jackpot was initially estimated to be $1.28 billion, but had officially grown to $1.34 billion due to last-minute sales, Illinois lottery director Harold Mays said at a press briefing on Saturday.

The prize is the equivalent of $780 million in cash, he said.

Mega Millions has yet to hear from the winner, Mays said.

"We don't know whether they even know that they won a prize. So I encourage everybody to check your ticket," he said, noting that it could take a few weeks for a winner to come forward to "get their affairs in order."

The winner can opt to remain anonymous, he said.

The Speedway will receive $500,000 for selling the winning ticket, according to Mays.

A view of the Speedway gas station where the winning ticket for the Mega Millions lottery jackpot was sold, in Des Plaines, Ill., July 30, 2022.

Kamil Krzaczynski/Reuters

For only the third time in the 20-year history of the American lottery game, the big prize has reached the billion-dollar mark. The jackpot has grown to an estimated $1.28 billion -- a cash value of $648.2 million -- after no ticket matched all six numbers drawn Tuesday night, according to a press release from Mega Millions.

This is the second-largest jackpot in Mega Millions history, behind only the record $1.537 billion won in South Carolina on Oct. 23, 2018 -- the world's largest lottery prize ever won on a single ticket.

"We are thrilled to have witnessed one of the biggest jackpot wins in Mega Millions history. We're eager to find out who won and look forward to congratulating the winner soon!" Ohio lottery director Pat McDonald, currently serving as lead director for the Mega Millions Consortium, said in a press release.

The jackpot has reset to $20 million for Tuesday's drawing.

A woman checks off the numbers chosen for her Mega Millions lottery tickets at a 7-Eleven convenience store in Chino Hills, California, on July 28, 2022.

Ringo Chiu/AFP via Getty Images

Friday night's Mega Millions drawing marked the 30th in this jackpot run, which began on April 19.

In the 29 drawings since the Mega Millions jackpot was last won in Tennessee on April 15, there have been over 28.1 million winning tickets at all prize levels, including 42 worth $1 million or more in 17 states across the country. Four Mega Millions jackpots have been won so far this year -- in California, New York, Minnesota and Tennessee.

Mega Millions jackpots start at $20 million and grow based on game sales and interest rates. Despite a surge in ticket sales, the odds of winning the big prize remain the same -- 1 in 303 million.

Mega Millions tickets are $2 and can be purchased in 45 U.S. states, Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Drawings are conducted at 11 p.m. ET every Tuesday and Friday at the studios of Atlanta ABC affiliate WSB-TV, supervised by the Georgia Lottery.

Winners can either take the money as an immediate cash lump sum or in 30 annual payments over 29 years.