Winning Mega Millions lottery ticket sold in Virginia

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The Associated Press
© October 17, 2009

Someone out there has a Mega Millions ticket worth about $200 million that was bought in Virginia.

The winning ticket was purchased at Valley's in Shenandoah. As of Saturday morning, the prize was unclaimed, said John Hagerty of the Virginia Lottery.

The winner has 180 days to claim the prize.

It's the third jackpot winner sold in Virginia this year. A Spotsylvania County man won a $75.6 million mega prize on May 1, and a Rappahannock County couple won a $19 million jackpot two weeks later.

Profits from the state lottery go to K-12 education and have contributed more than $439.1 million to education so far this year.

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Where

Submitted by kb1800 on Sat, 10/17/2009 at 2:15 pm.

They report that so far over $439 million has gone to Virginias schools. Then someone please tell me why Norfolks school buildings are in such poor shape. A report in the paper a few weeks ago talked about the billions of dollars that have gone to schools since the beginning of the lottery. What do they have to show for it?? Maybe someone needs to dig a little deeper.

Hampton Roads is where all

Submitted by sab0782 on Sat, 10/17/2009 at 10:00 pm.

Hampton Roads is where all the money is made but it is spent in Northern Virginia and Richmond

Just checked.

Submitted by jpjones on Sat, 10/17/2009 at 11:24 am.

Wasn't me. Dang!

Not sure..........

Submitted by vabeach23464 on Sat, 10/17/2009 at 11:13 am.

but good to see someone from Virginia win it for a change - seems all the winners are in California - rigged???? wow, never know......just wish the winner had been ME.....lol

Lottery Drawings are not rigged

Submitted by robertgf61546 on Sat, 10/17/2009 at 8:13 pm.

Don't compare California to VA as far as why the state of California has more winners than VA. Population of CA is about 10 times more than VA--that is why. Nice to know VA has the winner this time.

duh

Submitted by leosevern on Sat, 10/17/2009 at 11:31 am.

Virginia has 7.8 million people. California has 36.8 million people. Figure it out.

I know that BUT

Submitted by vabeach23464 on Sat, 10/17/2009 at 9:07 pm.

do those 36.8 million ALL buy lottery tickets - you can't look at the population of each state, but the actual number of tickets sold ..... proportionately still might be higher, but still interesting that they have more winners than any other state......and if all those illegals are buying winning tickets, then cali should be collecting those tax dollars from them !!!

What is the result of the $439.1 million dollars?

Submitted by had to say it on Sat, 10/17/2009 at 11:04 am.

"Profits from the state lottery go to K-12 education and have contributed more than $439.1 million to education so far this year."

Does the money go into the general fund to be used for other projects or is it put in a fund just for schools. Do localities back down how much they spend on schools because of the lotto money, meaning that schools don't really get any additional monies? Inquiring minds want to know!!!

Figures don't lie, but...

Submitted by FOP1811 on Sat, 10/17/2009 at 2:42 pm.

...but liars figure. The state legislature plays games with how this money is used for education. What they do is determine the lottery income for the year. They then deduct that amount from the regular budget for education and add in the lottery earnings. Therefore, they can honestly ALL the lottery income was applied to the education budget. However, the money paid for education doesn't INCREASE by the amount of lottery earnings, allocated education money is REPLACED by lottery earnings. Pretty slick ain't it? It amounts to a budget "shell game" where everyone loses. Playing the lottery may be entertaining, but it doesn't help increase the budget for education.