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August 13, 2009
Ever since the first Mega Millions drawing was held on May 17, 2002, Virginia Lottery players have brought home the prizes. Each drawing has produced thousands of Virginia winning tickets. The August 11, 2009, drawing produced a major milestone: 25 million winning Mega Millions tickets in the Commonwealth.
A total of 56,267 tickets sold in Virginia won prizes in the August 11 drawing, including one ticket that won $250,000 and three tickets that won $10,000 each. That brought the number of winning Mega Millions tickets bought in Virginia to 25,029,362 since the game began.
“Mega Millions has proven to be a winning proposition for Virginia since the first drawing,” said Lottery Executive Director Paula I. Otto. “The game has helped us raise millions of dollars for Virginia’s K-12 public schools.”
Of all those winning Mega Millions tickets in Virginia since the first drawing, five have won the jackpot:
* J. R. and Peggy Triplett of Winchester won $239 million (they took cash option of $141.5 million) on February 20, 2004.
* Kimberly Swanson of Richmond and Dan Franks of St. Petersburg, FL won $44 million (they took cash option of $24.6 million) on May 29, 2007.
* Tucker Adcock of Buckingham and Bernard Adcock of Appomattox won $82.5 million in 26 annual payments on Aug. 31, 2007.
* Joe Denette of Spotsylvania County won $75.6 million (he took cash option of $47.8 million) on May 1, 2009.
* Joe and Sue Claffy of Rappahannock County won $19 million (they took cash option of $11.5 million) on May 15, 2009.
An additional 335 tickets in Virginia have won the game’s second prize, which was originally $175,000, but was increased to $250,000 in 2005.
Mega Millions drawings are held Tuesdays and Fridays at 11:00 p.m. Eastern Time. For more information please go to www.valottery.com. The odds of winning the jackpot are approximately one in 176 million. The odds of winning any of the Mega Millions prizes are approximately 1 in 40.
Nearly 95 cents of each dollar spent on the Virginia Lottery by players goes back to the Commonwealth in the form of contributions to education, prizes and retailer commissions. Since 1999, all Virginia Lottery profits have been designated solely to K-12 public school education in the Commonwealth. In that time, the Lottery has turned over more than $4 billion for Virginia’s public schools. The latest annual profits of $455 million currently represent about 6 percent of state funding for public education in Virginia. In 20 years, the Lottery has sold more than $20 billion in tickets, awarded more than $1 billion in retailer commissions and paid more than $10.9 billion in prizes to players.
Please play responsibly.
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