Md. Lottery Officials Say No One Has Claimed The Winning Mega Millions Ticket
BALTIMORE (WJZ)-- The Mega Millions mystery remains unsolved. The Maryland Lottery says no one has come forward with the winning ticket.
Mike Hellgren has the latest twists in the search for the winner.
No one has come to the Maryland Lottery headquarters to claim the ticket. What we do know is that the winner had a single ticket bought on Liberty Road.
As cameras from around the world rolled, the director of the Maryland Lottery said he has no idea who won the jackpot.
"We should be clear: no one has approached the Maryland Lottery to claim this ticket," said Stephen Martino, director of the Maryland Lottery. "We have not heard from anyone claiming that they have the ticket."
He would also not comment on the story of Mirlande Wilson, the single mom who lives in West Baltimore who claimed that she was the big winner.
The lottery does have surveillance video inside the store in Milford Mill where the ticket was sold but it doesn't prove anything.
"We do not believe that the time stamp on the surveillance tape matches up to the time stamp on the lottery computer system," Martino said.
There are other winners in all of this. The store gets $100,000 and the state gets $13.4 million. It goes into the general fund and lawmakers can spend it any way they want.
Three tickets match the winning numbers-- the other two were sold in Kansas and Illinois. No one has come forward to claim those prizes either. And while some big winners come forward right away, not everyone does. In fact, many times they wait, weeks even.
"I am not surprised that we're seven days out from the drawing-- really only four business days-- that we haven't heard from anyone yet," Martino said. "One thing there hasn't been in this is a shortage of rumors about who may or may not have won. We are anxious for them to come forward, but until that time, the ticket has not been claimed."
There was a story circulating on Wednesday that a man from Glen Burnie had won the jackpot. That turned out to be fake.
The odds of winning the Mega Millions jackpot are one in 175 million.
