Single dad Brant Edgington, a resident of Fremont, Nebraska, doesn’t usually play the lottery. But on March 22, while visiting Baker’s grocery store, he played the Mega Millions Lottery. He was there to buy a pre-made salad, but in a fortunate stroke of serendipity ended up with a jackpot worth $1 million—enough money to change his life forever. In a press release, Nebraska Lottery reported his impressive story.
Edgington stopped at Baker’s #323 to buy a pre-made salad for lunch. But then, instinctively, he decided to play Mega Millions lottery. Although his father and grandfather are regular Mega Millions and Powerball players, Edgington said he only plays when the jackpot gets high and wasn’t expecting to buy a ticket at all. “I don’t play all that often. As a single parent, baloney is more important, financially,” the dad said in a statement.
The ticket he purchased at Baker’s turned out to be the winning ticket. The ticket contained five quick pick plays for the March 22 drawing, one of which matched all of the five winning numbers (03, 08, 31, 35, 44) but not the Mega Ball (16). In the store, there was another person apart from Edgington. He was busily immersed in a pile of scratch tickets. On the following Saturday, Edgington took a look at his tickets. He tried to use the Check-a-Ticket scanner but the machine wasn’t working properly. So, he approached a clerk at the counter.
“They disappeared for a minute,” he said. “Then a different lady came up with her and they just stared at me. She told me, ‘Don’t pass out when I tell you this.’” As Edgington stood there, in utter stupefaction, the lady asked him to make his way through the Nebraska Lottery’s Lincoln offices to claim his prize. It was April 5 when he claimed his prize. The prize was a whopping $1 million. The single dad is not sure though if he will continue playing the jackpot game in the long term.
According to the Mega Millions website, the lottery game was also known as ‘The Big Game’ and it began in 1996. It was later renamed “Mega Millions.” The biggest winning jackpot in Mega Millions history is $1.602 billion. It was won in the August 8 drawing last year and its winning ticket was sold by a Florida store.
Mega Millions tickets cost $2.00 per play. Players can pick six numbers from two separate pools of numbers; five different numbers from 1 to 70 (the white balls) and one number from 1 to 25 (the gold Mega Ball), or select the “Easy Pick” option. An individual wins the jackpot if all six winning numbers match with the corresponding day’s drawing.
