Big ticket sales as Mega Millions jackpot hits record

NEW YORK -- Lottery players lined up at ticket machines across the nation Tuesday, dreaming about the fat bank accounts and permanent vacations that winning the record $370 million Mega Millions jackpot would bring.

The winning numbers were 42-39-29-22-16; Mega Ball number 20. It wasn't immediately known how many tickets were sold nationwide or who, if anyone, held the winning ticket.

New Yorkers were buying more than 1 million tickets an hour, said Robert McLaughlin, the state's lottery director. Virginia retailers were selling about 8,550 tickets per minute as Tuesday night's drawing approached.

"The fever is definitely hot and heavy now," said Sheila Hill-Christian, lottery director in Virginia.

After the jackpot hit $355 million Monday, the 12 participating Mega Millions states agreed to move Tuesday night's drawing from the game's usual home in Atlanta to New York's Times Square.

On Tuesday, Mega Millions officials raised the estimated payout to $370 million, if taken as an annuity. The jackpot's estimated cash option value was $221.1 million, before taxes. The odds of winning the Mega Millions jackpot are about 1 in 176 million.

The largest previous multistate lottery jackpot was $365 million in 2006, when eight workers at a Nebraska meat processing plant hit the Powerball lotto.

At New York's Port Authority Bus Terminal, construction worker Andelko Kalinic had an idea of what he would do if his Mega Millions ticket paid off.

"Go to the moon," he said. "Why not?"

Mega Millions tickets are sold in California, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Texas, Virginia and Washington state.