Lucky Mega Millions Winner Sits on Winning Ticket Worth $522 Million For Weeks!

Imagine winning more than half a billion dollars on the lottery and then hiding your lottery ticket in a secret place for weeks! This is exactly what one lucky woman from San Diego did recently after discovering she had won more than $520 million on the Mega Millions. Laarni Bibal purchased her lottery ticket from a local market store in San Diego and the day after, she realised she’d hit the jackpot. But it took quite some time for Laarni to claim her win, after hiding her lottery ticket in a secret place for safe keeping. The drawing back in June only produced one winner – Laarni and he won’t have to pay any tax on the winnings either. The option of cash increments of the full amount or a one-off lump sum at a lower amount were offered; the same choice given to every jackpot winner produced and Laarni opted for the one-off payment, which will be approximately $340 million after federal taxes.

More Than One Winner

Speaking to the California State Lottery, Laarni said “My heart started beating really fast” and when pushed for info on her secret hiding place, she said: “I can’t tell you. The secret hiding place is still a secret.”

The Mega Millions winning numbers from the June drawing were 17, 19, 27, 40 and 68 with Mega Ball number 2, but Laarni wasn’t the only one to win with this ticket! The owners of the store in which she purchased the Mega Millions ticket; the Sorrento Deli Mart, will receive $1,000,000 for their part in producing a jackpot winner.

Adrian Goro and his family have been supplying customers with lottery tickets (among other comestibles) for thirty-years now and when they heard of a winner being produced at their store, they were thrilled, but Adrian initially thought they’d won the whole jackpot; “My mom runs upstairs screaming and she’s like, ‘We won the lotto!’ I thought she meant my dad bought a ticket and we won like half-a-billion dollars. I was going out of my mind.” A million dollars is a great prize to have from someone else’s win and the family have decided to open up a restaurant in the building next to their store.

All it took was a $2 lottery ticket and Laarni hit the jackpot! Will you be the next winner? Draws take place twice a week and are available in 44 states across America, Washington DC and the US Virgin Islands. $522 million is a huge sum for anyone to win, but it’s not the biggest sum ever won in the US – that was $1.6 billion and it was one by three lucky ticket holders back on 13^th January 2016; two winners came forward instantly, but the third deliberated before claiming their winnings.