Krista Carroll, an unemployed radiology technician from Middlebury, experienced her very own “once in blue moon” event last Friday evening when the numbers on her CT Lottery Mega Millions® “Quick Pick” ticket purchased for the August 31 drawing perfectly matched the first five numbers drawn on that date. The prize for such a feat was a whopping $250,000.
“When I scanned my ticket in the Ticket Checker and it said it was a $250,000 winner, I didn’t believe it…I thought it was a mistake,” Carroll told Lottery officials. “When the clerk confirmed I really won $250,000, a nearby customer had to help me sit down—I thought I was going to faint,” said Carroll with a laugh.
The winning Mega Millions numbers drawn on August 31 were 31 - 40 - 41 - 47 - 48. The Mega Ball number was 45. A total of 5,328 winning Mega Millions tickets were sold statewide on that date; values ranged from $2 to $250,000 each.
Wednesday morning, Carroll, accompanied by her family, arrived at lottery headquarters in Rocky Hill to accept a prize check for $170,750 (value after taxes). “We’ve already talked to our financial planner about this. We’d like to put some money away for our daughter’s college and pay off a chunk of our mortgage,” Carroll said.
For selling Carroll her $250,000 prize winning ticket, Stop & Shop, located at 763 Straits Turnpike in Watertown will receive a $2,500 bonus from the CT Lottery.
The overall odds of winning a Mega Millions prize are 1 in 39.9 based. Odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 175,711,536 million.
For information about the CT Lottery, call (860) 713-2700, or visit ctlottery.org.
