Gilbert Cisneros purchased his lucky lottery ticket at Los Angeles diner and won the US Mega Millions jackpot. His wife Jacki refuses to give up her overnight assignment editor at KNBC-TV position because she can’t imagine her life without work. Cisneros couple plan to donate part of their lotto winnings to charity and purchase a house.
Unlike in the United States, where lottery wins are taxed, and the full winnings are paid by an annuity over a period of many years or a reduced lump-sum amount is offered, European jackpots are generally tax-free (the lotteries themselves are taxed in other ways) and the winning jackpot is paid out immediately in one lump sum.
* SuperEnalotto is Italy’s largest lottery. On August 22, 2009, the jackpot was finally won. Since January 31, 2009, nobody had won the jackpot. The total prize money was € 147,807,299.08 (US$ 211,807,859.58) for a player of Bagnone (Toscana). This is Europe’s biggest jackpot for a single winner.
* EuroMillions is a pan-European lottery, with odds of 1 in 76,275,360 and a minimum jackpot of €15 million ($21 million U.S. dollars).
The largest large lump sum payments in European Lotteries include:
* In July 2005, housewife Dolores McNamara, a resident of Limerick, Ireland, won a tax-free lump sum of €115,436,126 ($198 million U.S. dollars) when she hit a nine-week rollover jackpot.
* On February 3, 2006, EuroMillions had a prize of €183 million ($261 million U.S. dollars), which was shared between three winning tickets, two in France and one in Portugal, each winning €61,191,026 ($87 million U.S. dollars).
* In May 2009, a 25-year-old woman from Mallorca, Spain won a EuroMillions jackpot of €126,231,764 ($180 million U.S. dollars). The jackpot had accumulated after rolling over for 7 consecutive draws.[1]
* German National Lottery biggest lottery winning of €37,600,000 ($53 million U.S. dollars) was taken on 7 October 2006.
* Largest UK prize was hit on 6 January 1996 and totaled at £42,000,000 ($69 million U.S. dollars).
* The Irish National Lottery has a guaranteed jackpot of €2 million ($2 million U.S. dollars) for each of its twice-weekly Lotto draws.
* The largest ever jackpot of €18,963,441 ($27 million U.S. dollars) was won on June 28, 2008 by a syndicate of sixteen work colleagues at a quarry and concrete plant in County Carlow.
The record annuity-value prizes in the largest state lottery games in the United States have been:
* California State Lottery: $193 million to three players February 16, 2002[1]
o to single winner, $141 million to Alex Matulas on June 23, 2001[2]
* New York State Lottery: $130 million in special Millennium Millions game November 4, 2000, shared by two winners
o $100 million to Johnnie Ely in Millennium Millions of December 31, 1999
* Pennsylvania State Lottery: $115.6 million shared among 14 winning tickets in April 1989, in Super 7 game later discontinued after a scandal; in subsequent Super 6 game $86,192,222.20 in December 1999, claimed by Shemonski family in March 2000
* Florida State Lottery: $106.5 million to six tickets in September 1990
* Texas State Lottery: estimated $145 million June 19, 2004
