Friday the 13th proved to be lucky for a Maine lottery player who hauled in the second-largest jackpot in the history of Mega Millions with a $1.35 billion winning ticket — the seventh time the drawing took place on the unlucky date in its two-decade history.
Lottery officials said on Saturday that a lone ticket holder in the Pine Tree State was the only one to match all six numbers drawn the previous night — 30, 43, 45, 46 and 61, plus the gold Mega Ball 14 — after the jackpot had been building since it was last won on Oct. 14, when a $502 million prize was shared by winners in California and Florida.
The Maine Lottery announced that the winning ticket was sold at Hometown Gas & Grill in Lebanon — owned by lifetime lottery player Fred Cotreau.
“For it to hit so close to home and be in my establishment, it was amazing,” Cotreau told The Post. “I know I’m going to keep playing, that’s for sure.”
Cotreau, who said he doesn’t yet know who won the life-altering grand prize, added that there was a substantial increase in lottery sales in the leadup to Friday’s drawing.
“There’s a lot of traffic when the jackpots get this big,” Cotreau said. “The day of the drawing, the numbers are 30%, 40% more.”
Cotreau said he has heard that he will be getting paid since the winning ticket came from his store, but said he has not heard anything from lottery officials yet. However, the store should bank $50,000, according to News Center Maine.
“I think Monday morning, the first thing I’m going to do is call my agent,” Cotreau said.
The winner would have to take annual annuity payments over the next 29 years to get the entire $1.35 billion, although most winners take the more-immediate cash option, which was an estimated $724.6 million for Friday’s drawing.
It is the first Mega Millions win in Maine’s history, Pat McDonald, Ohio lottery director and lead director of the Mega Millions Consortium, said in a statement Saturday.
“It’s the fourth billion-dollar jackpot in Mega Millions history,” he added.
Friday’s grand prize was the seventh Friday the 13th win since the game began in 2002 and a runner-up to the largest Mega Millions win, which remains a $1.57 billion prize won by a single ticket in South Carolina on Oct. 23, 2018.
It is also the first jackpot won in 25 straight drawings and closely edges out a $1.3 billion ticket sold in Illinois in July to become the second-largest grand prize.
The weekend drawing included a total of 7,072,832 winners across all nine prize tiers, including 14 million-dollar second-place tickets that were sold in New York, California, Florida, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Texas.
More than 160 third-prize tickets were also sold including 27 that included the option Megaplier, which doubled the standard $10,000 prize.