UPDATED @ 11:45 March 30:
The Mega Millions numbers were announced Friday night — 2-4-23-38-46 and the Mega Ball is 23 — according to lottery officials in Atlanta.
If no one wins Friday night’s record $640 million jackpot, it has been reported that the next drawing could be worth as much as $975 million.
Earlier at noon:
Max Khacha doesn’t usually sell a single lottery ticket before 10 a.m. at his South Pugh Street Unimart in State College.
Just after 7 a.m. Friday, he sold $200 worth.
The Mega Millions drawing is now worth a staggering $640 million, after increasing overnight from $540 million. It surpasses the previous $390 million world record. People are lining up for their $1 chance at half a billion dollars in 42 states, D.C. and the Virgin Islands – and Happy Valley is no exception.
On 401 S. Pugh St., Khacha said Mega Millions sales have been through the roof since the jackpot skyrocketed on Tuesday. Just Thursday, his small store behind Nicholas Towers pulled $300 in lottery tickets alone.
Students who have never played the lottery before are stopping in, he said. The number is just too big to ignore.
‘People are buying 50 tickets at a time, sometimes 100,’ he said.
Khacha hasn’t bought a ticket of his own, he says, but he wishes with every purchase that his store has sold the winning ticket, considering the hefty payout waiting for the lucky vendor.
Dreams range for the philanthropic, like donating to charity, to calculated – investing the money and paying off debts – to the fanatical – some students said they’d hop on a yacht immediately. It’s worth at least one indulgent plan, since chances are only 1 in 176 million, according to the Mega Millions official website.
The jackpot has been climbing since Jan. 24, and there hasn’t been a winner in 18 drawings.
Friday night at 11 p.m., that streak could end – with one very lucky winner ushered into the high life, and the receiving end of phone calls from a lot of long-lost cousins.
