Lottery players have $1 billion dreams: Travel, help family, buy lots of good stuff

Mega Millions lottery ticket buyers — with visions of what it might be like to win $1 billion — plucked down $2 in droves Friday at retailers with the hopes that maybe, just maybe, they could be rich beyond their wildest dreams.

It’s the stuff that dreams are made of, to steal Humphrey Bogart’s ending line from the 1941 classic detective movie “The Maltese Falcon,” as well as a playwright by the name of William Shakespeare.

The annuity jackpot of the multi-state lottery swelled to $1 billion, or $740 million in cash, before Friday’s draw.

Kristen Mills of Hempfield bought $54 worth of tickets at the Greensburg News, courtesy of a pool of 27 Westmoreland County Industrial Development Corp. employees.

“I would travel. I would take care of some family members. I would probably give some to charity. I will travel to Europe again — all of it this time,” said Mills, noting she would not have to cut vacation short to return to work.

Mega Millions tickets were selling at a pace of $22,000 a minute by the afternoon, according to Ewa Swope, a Pennsylvania Lottery spokeswoman. The jackpot grew during the day because money was pouring into the jackpot from sales in 45 states, Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Draws for the Mega Millions game are held each Tuesday and Friday. There has not had a jackpot winner in 36 drawings.

If there is a winning ticket in her pool of 27 tickets, Mills said she will not be entertaining requests from a “long-lost relative.” She may even go back to her maiden name or a whole new identity, she quipped.

“I already have a couple houses in Florida picked out and one here,” said Ed Frazer of Arnold, who stopped at the Golden Dawn grocery store in New Kensington to buy Mega Millions tickets on Friday afternoon.

Frazer said he’d spend half the year in Florida and the other half in Pennsylvania if he won. He already does that now, but the winnings would help him do that a lot more luxuriously.

Ron Balla, of New Kensington’s Mount Vernon neighborhood, already plays the lottery every day but rarely do the jackpots — or dreams about what he might do with the winnings — get this big. He rattled off a laundry list of things he’d buy with the winnings.

“I’d buy a new house, a new car, a new boat, all that good stuff,” Balla said while at the Golden Dawn.

Helping his family is one of the goals of Dan Zeoli of South Greensburg, a bagger at the East Pittsburgh Street Shop ‘n Save in Greensburg.

He would indulge in a bit of traveling, as well.

Looking out onto a blustery day, Zeoli said he would head to sunny Florida and not mind the summer’s heat and stifling humidity one bit.

One of those who still was figuring out what they would do if they won was Jean Gong and her father, Gan Gong, both of Greensburg.

“We’ll just travel,” Jean Gong said, drawing a smile from her father, who had just bought a ticket at Shop ‘n Save.

The Gongs were among a steady stream of customers going to the lottery machine, said Jeff Skatell, store manager.

“I hope people will help others in need … there’s a lot of it,” Skatell said.

Even though the odds of winning are ultra slim — about 1 in 302 million — people were lining up to take a chance, said Allan Lydic, owner of Greensburg News Stand.

Lydic, a geology major at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown, said he can’t figure out why people start getting excited about buying lottery tickets when the jackpot tops $400 million, but pay little heed to ones of “only” $20 million — like Powerball, another multi-state lottery, offered on Friday.

Its jackpot had climbed to $731 million before it was matched Wednesday, with the winning ticket sold in Maryland.

Jodie Noel, office manager of Community Supermarket in Harrison, said ticket sales there have been brisk for Mega Millions and Powerball. On average, she said people have been spending about $10 to $20 on tickets at a time.

Before anyone starts building a mansion with their winnings, Uncle Sam gets his chunk.

For someone choosing 30 annual payments of $33.3 million, that would amount to $12.3 million each year in federal taxes and another $1 million to Pennsylvania — should someone here have the winning ticket, according to the website usamega.com. That would leave $600 million for the winner after three decades of payments.

Should the winner choose a cash lump sum payment of $739.6 million, the federal government would take $273.6 million up front with Pennsylvania snagging another $22.7 million, leaving $443.3 million in riches, the website reports.

Friday’s jackpot was the second largest in Mega Millions history and the third largest in U.S. lottery history. It trails only the $1.586 billion Powerball jackpot in January 2016 and the $1.537 Mega Millions jackpot in October 2018.

“That was pretty crazy,” Lydic said of sales of tickets in October 2018.

And if no one wins on Friday night, Lydic can expect more of the same on Tuesday, when the Lottery expects the jackpot to rise to $1.1 billion, with a cash payout of $813 million.