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Subscribe to RSSNBC's Amy Robach travels to the Moto Mart in Red Bud, Ill., where one of the winning Mega Millions jackpot tickets was sold. The winner has yet to come forward.
The winning Mega Millions ticket and its mystery holder are the talk of Red Bud, Ill., as the town's 3,700 residents speculate about the would-be millionaire's identity.
Denise Metzger, manager of the local Moto Mart convenience store, which sold the winning ticket, says she has no idea who the lucky winner is.
"I heard a lot of darn it, was it me? Or darn it, I forgot to get my ticket. Of course the language is a little more colorful than that," Metzger told NBC News.
Area residents speculated about the mystery winner's identity.
"If I won that much money, I wouldn't be telling everybody," Tina La Chance, an area resident, told NBC News. "You'll have more friends than you ever knew you had."
Three lottery tickets sold in Kansas, Illinois and Maryland hit the record-breaking $640 million jackpot. Each winning ticket was expected to be worth more than $213 million before taxes.
A second winning ticket was purchased in Kansas. Over the weekend, lottery officials revealed the sale took place in one of the state's 21 northeastern counties. Kansas law allows lottery winners to remain anonymous.
In Maryland, the winning ticket was sold at a 7-Eleven store in Milford Mill, near Baltimore. Maryland does not require lottery winners to be publicly identified; the Mega Millions winner can claim the prize anonymously.
But Mirlande Wilson, 37, came forward Sunday and told the New York Post she had bought the winning ticket in Maryland.
Wilson and her co-workers at a Baltimore-area McDonald's restaurant pooled their cash to buy tickets, but, according to the Post, the woman claims she won with a ticket she bought for herself and has no intention of sharing.
“We had a group plan, but I went and played by myself," Wilson, a single mother of seven, told the newspaper. "[The ‘winning’ ticket] wasn’t on the group plan."
“She can’ t do this to us!” Suleiman Osman Husein, a shift manager and one of 15 members in the pool, told the Post. “We each paid $5. She took everybody’s money!”
The woman refused to show the alleged winning ticket, saying she would present it to lottery officials Monday. But a clerk at the 7-Eleven where Wilson bought tickets said lottery officials who reviewed the store’s video believe a man bought the winning ticket, the Post reported.
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I almost feel sorry for the person in Red Bud because they're going to have to go into hiding to avoid all the crazies out there. Good luck to Milande Wilson with her upcoming legal battle! Gosh, life looks kind of sweet staying poor!
New York .... Miami .... Los Angeles .... give me the crazies in Red Bud, IL any time.
Crazy is crazy - it doesn't matter where you are from.
Good luck to the winners! They will need it to avoid the vultures!
I'd be getting facial reconstruction and a name change. NO, YOU DO NOT KNOW ME. Hell, throw it on a credit card. You can pay it off later. All I really hope is that the person is kind and does some good with their money. Congratulations, and feel free to "friend" me on Facebook.
True, I was going to say: The woman in Maryland has an uphill battle proving that the winning ticket is hers and hers alone...
Good luck! She's going to need it--and the only ones who are going to make out like bandits on that ticket are the lawyers representing the 14 jilted pool players.
LKessler,
Not necessarily. If she purchased the groups tickets as $5 quick picks they would have all been on the same ticket. If she bought her own single ticket it would have only one series of numbers. I would have thought that all the people who played with her would have wanted to see the ticket before the draw.
The only ones slobbering to find out who won are the media vultures, so they can hound the poor bastards to death.
I don't understand why these conflicts come up when a group buys several tickets.
Put them on a copier make copies for everyone and now there is no question.
Millions of dollars and "I trust you, coworker" never seems to work.
"Put them on a copier make copies for everyone and now there is no question."
Exactly... if they didn't post a photocopy of their pool tickets on the wall or give a copy to each of the participants, that's their own fault.
Every time that the person who bought the pool tickets for friends actually wins on their OWN ticket, it seems that the vultures want to claim that it was a pool ticket. Easy to make sure that never happens - if you have any common sense. So sad that the people who tend to win the lotteries so often lack even a basic clue about such things...
As to the 14 co-McWorkers... screw 'em - if they didn't have the tickets copied or at least written down in some log book somewhere to prove that it was a pool ticket, they're completely S.O.L. in my opinion. There should be one single hearing (not 14), and the judge should summarily dismiss all claims unless the vultures (or their vulture attorneys) can show evidence that it may have been a pool ticket.
I wonder if that crazy mailman still works in Red Bud
No, we fired him years ago. The sheriff still rides in a Taxi though because he failed his drivers test agian. Well, I sure hope all those big fancy News Van don't break the covered bridge, we just fixed it.
Good think many states allow people to claim the winnings anonymously. Too many nutbags and relatives that never speak to you come out of the woodwork looking for handouts.
These pools often lead to disputes. They need to buy their tickets, scan them, and post, or email them to everyone in the pool. Then any other tickets purchased as an individual can be reasonably distinguished.
Now, instead, they will be spending a lot of time and money in court.
Tha is why I don't participate in them, if I want to play i buy tickets myself. I never say I will share with anyone either. Then if I win I can share with anyone or no one I so chose.
If she was the sdesignated purchaser of the pool tickets, she will have to share the winnings--already been decided, several times. She should save herself and her fellow workers the court time and costs. Just spit the purse with everyone. It will be more money than any one of them can manage. Greed...I play in the pool until one of the tickets hits and then I don't.
Yeah - why don't the people in that pool know what numbers she bought with their money? That's really stupid. In our office pool, a copy of the tickets were emailed to each person in the pool, including more bought after working hours, and everyone was reminded to check their work email from home for the extra tickets. I'm surprised that people in a high turn-over place of business would put such blind trust in any co-worker. Everyone still has the right to play on their own, outside of the pool.
Everyone wants a piece of her pie I bet.. In our office, she scans the tickets to everyone, and sends them out via e mail, so everyone has a copy and can't get cheated out!
In our pool, everyone bought the agreed upon $5 worth of numbers in their own home areas and then gave them to me. I then scanned them onto a pdf so that they couldn't be manipulated, put all the participants name on the pdf and then forwarded to the group. That way all the members of the group knew the numbers in play before hand. Also, we kept the participants of the pool limited to the people we know and trust. Even then there is no guarantee. Everyone of course bought their own tickets for themselves but doing it this way keeps the possibility of someone claiming the any one person used the groups money instead of their own to buy the lucky ticket. Good luck to all the winners and I hope that they get to enjoy their winnings without having to fight over it.
When the office I worked in did a pool, everyone got copies of all the tickets.
You have to take into consideration that the people have access to a scanner or such. I mean they work at mcdonalds. Just saying.
Slumpbuster, that's exactly what we do at my office...that way we all know who played and what tickets were bought.
We do a pool at my office. I buy the tickets and make a copy of them for each of the participants. It's the only way to avoid conflict, since I also buy my own personal tickets. I wouldn't do this if I worked with a huge office, but there's only 4 of us. I'd like to think it wouldn't turn ugly if something like this happened, but you never know.
This is how we do it at my work. We purchase the tickets in advance of the drawing prior to 5 p.m. the work day so they can be scan and email to all who play so that there is no dispute over the tickets. If Ms. Wilson bought the tickets for the coworkers, then she should be able to show tickets containing 75 consecutive numbers and then her single ticket she purchase separately. Good luck the coworkers at McD's.
Bad karma will come to that woman. $640mm split three ways and then 15 still gives each winner $14mm.
How greedy can you get?
calmedady: they all could have copied the numbers down on napkins, I wouldn't enter a pool unless I had copies of tickets I helped pay for. The lady who claims to have won, though, did have the right, as did everyone else in her pool to buy individually, I hope I'm not hearing about this for years, I'm hoping her independent purchase won the prize!! I hate it when people aren't fair:(
That woman is going to have a legal battle on her hands. I read a story not too long about about the same thing, and the man who won had to share his winnings with everyone in the pool because he couldn't prove that the ticket he had wasn't one of the ones that was bought in the pool.
When we would do the pool at work, whoever bought the tickets would scan them and email them to everyone in the pool, so there was never a question about it. Even if you work at McDonald's, it's just a good idea to protect yourself by just making a photocopy of the tickets you bought, so if you do happen to buy the winning ticket on your own, you have proof that it wasn't part of the pool.
Sounds like a lot of time and resources at work are taken up by lottery pools. Every party needs a pooper and that's why they invited me....
And to Susan above, if she in fact purchased the winning ticket with her own money outside of the pool then those participating in the pool don't have a right to it. If she's lying then she ought to have to give up more than her "fair share" and pay all the court costs. Lawyers could take a third of it if they become involved.
From what I read about this elsewhere was she originally bought 75 tickets for the pool. Before Friday they were put in the safe at the McD's. She left Friday from work, and when leaving the manager asked her to get $5.00 more for the pool.
She then went and bought the $5.00 for the pool, and another $5.00 for herself at same time. She didnt go back and put the extra 5.00 from the pool into the safe. She kept them with hers. They werent separated.
Time stamp, serial number aside, noone here has a leg to stand on. If hers were first, who would know? If she has 2 tickets in front of her each with 5.00 on each of them, then saw the numbers, WHY ON EARTH would she call EVERYONE and tell them "SHE" WON? IDIOT....She should have just disappeared and collected.
Wish I was one of the 14 lawyers involved.....
The one in Maryland is an idiot!!!!!!We always did a group buy and we would photocopy the tickets,and hand out a copy of the ones we bought, so there was no confusion if someone decided to play by yourself. Like i said "Everybody got a copy of the tickets bought,so we knew which tickets were in the group buy, so there was no confusion if you wanted to play by yourself".I still think shes an selfish idiot if she dont at least drop a million a piece to the others. Are you really going to miss 15 million of that even after taxes or at least give them a million a piece and let them pay taxes on thier million.The greed in this country is out rarageous anymore. Its no wonder this country is so screwed up.
She took her co-workers money to buy tkts, and wants to claim the winning tkt was not from the "pool" but a separate tkt using "her own" money. Ha ! HA ! yeah, everyone is dumb, and the courts haven't seen this before .
If she has x number of tickets totaling how much she collected from her co-workers or one ticket with x number of plays on it, and then 1 separate ticket with just the winning number she'll stand a chance. Or if she gave everyone a copy of the tickets purchased for the pool before the actual drawing. Otherwise her winnings will be $14M before tax and lawyer fees to defend this.
one million is good enough you're crazy don't need that many to be a sinner!
Note to all playing in lottery pools....get copies of tickets to all participants before the draws. I used to play in pools, sometimes I would buy, sometimes others would, but we all had copies to check for ourselves. When it comes to that kind of money, no one can be trusted. We all had our own personal tickets also, but the pool tickets were the pool tickets. Sometimes instead of pooling money and one person buying, each participant would bring in a ticket, copies made and distributed.
Hey it was April Fool's day when she said she won...maybe just a joke and everyone fell for it..
The article does state that according to video tapes it appears to be a man who bought the winning ticket. Was this maybe her husband, or a total stranger. I think joe s. is on to something here.
When I have run the office lottery pool, I always type up all the numbers on the tickets I buy, give the tickets to another entrant who double checks and verifies those are the numbers I bought so there is no bait and switch accusation. Then one e-mail listing all the numbers goes out to everyone entered so they can play along at home. We agree in advance that totals less than $1 apiece are re-invested into tickets for the next drawing. It has worked so far... we haven't had a fight (or won even a dollar) yet!
I saw that the person who won was in a pool at work and she had the tickets. But the one that won she said was one she bought on her own and not part of the pool.
How can someone do this kind of thing to their co-workers? What a shame, and she can't prove that it wasn't a group purchase. Not right. She would be better to split with the co-workers and keep cohesive the employment relations. She'll never be trusted by anyone again.
She may not be lying. Just because she was in a pool doesn't mean she didn't have her own private tickets. Should she be forced to share that money just so everyone still likes her?
I participate in work pools, and buy my own tickets. If my personal ticket wins, I'm certainly not going to share it with my coworkers just so I look like a nice person. And if they hate me for it? I can afford to get help getting over their dislike.
This can be confirmed or denied easily. The tickets belonging to the pool would be in a sequence. She has no chance if the winning ticket is within the sequential pool tickets. If it was bought separately she may prevail. I do not understand why she wouldn't give each of her playing pool members $2,000,000.00. It would cost her $30,000,000.00 out of %214,000,000.00...
Yes, NB, but do you really think that her co-workers would be satisfied with $2,000,000 each when the claim is that they were all equal partners, and thus entitled to equal shares? Giving them anything would easily be used as an acknowledgement of their claims' validity. It's lose lose for all involved.
What employment relations? Do you really believe she will still be working at McDonalds after this?
people dont realize there is about a 50% tax done. so it will be 30 million out of about 105 million. thats a pretty big chunk gone... but at the same time its still 75 million to play with!
i hope that she really isnt the winner... she seems like a POS. or if she is the winner i hope it goes to court and the money is locked up for years in the battle. worthless scum.
If you play in a pool, not only would you want to copy and distribute all the tickets in the pool, but have all participants sign, print their names and date the copy before distribution. Maybe even have a one-line statement like:
"All of the above signed agree that should any one of these numbers win, the money will be distributed amongst all participants evenly."
I know, too much trouble. Better to not participate in pools. In this case, I think it should be as simple as if they do have distributed copies of the tickets and the number appears on those copies. Anyone with a copy should get their share. If they don't have copies and she's got the only proof... sorry everybody else!
It's probably an illegal alien.
I think you are right.
Hmph Mirlande Wilson. You are in Maryland which can allow you be anonymous, yet you brag about your ticket that may or may not have been bought on your own.
Congratulations on further providing fuel for stereotyping single mothers as cold hearted.
Who cares? It wasn't me. Who wants to know? Only the parisites that will hound them! Leave them alone this the worst part of winning the lottery.
When I walked into work today someone told me about this and I knew right off if she had to fill out a questionaire on race I knew what her answer would be. Go figure and then add haitian to boot. Why would you ever just someoen like that.
Hats off to Maryland and Kansas for letting the winners remain anonomous and keep their privacy. Who needs the media whores putting you on tv, the net and in the papers so all the beggars and thieves can harass you night and day. Every time some one wins they always ask the same dumb question "what are you planning to do with the money". They should know by now and have a master list of all the answers since most people have the same dreams and desires. For those of you who band together and pool your money and buy tickets you should get smart and follow the procedures in a football pool where the numbers are drawn before the game and each player gets a copy of the pool and their are no problems with who won.
If she was the designated person to buy the tickets for the "pool" and then hit the number, there has already been enough precedent to establish that her claims of buying the ticket separately won't hold up in court. Others have tried that tactic before. Funny how money and greed makes people do the strangest things.
I hope you are right American. There can't be a person alive that believes this woman from Maryland.
...maybe its, "money & greed reveal the true nature of a person's heart."
Simple solution. The tickets are numerically numbered on the back, if all the losing pool tickets follow in sequence there is no problem. If she claims winning on a ticket that is within that sequence you bet she's headed to court!
That might not prove anything. Say she buys 75 tickets for the group and 5 for her. If bought at the same time, they would all be sequential. How do you prove which 5 are hers? If one of the first 5 wins, she can say the first 5 were hers. If one of the last 5 wins, she can say the last 5 were hers.
However, if one in the middle wins, at least as far from the end as the number of tickets that she bought for herself, that would be a good indication that it was the group's ticket.
Mirlande Wilson, if she is the winner, will not be able to cash the check, you know all the other employees who were part of the pool have already got a lawyer to represent them.
Mirlande Wilson, single mother of seven ....makes ya wonder, "Of how many different fathers?"
Well at least we won't have to pay for all her free government benefits any longer.
your wrong, didn't you see that article on that lady that won In NYC?? She won and still collecting welfare..... Something about the government aid and lottery are not linked together, bunch of bull....
@cmontoy Saw two articles about lottery winners in Michigan collecting benefits, they're lookin to change that law/guideline. Wait and see it's goin to happen fast.
I see so many disputes on the lottery "pool " that people choose to be in .Why can`t the lotteries issue special tickets for the "pool" people . If you buy these tickets you must state how many people are in the "pool" . The lottery could refuse any phoney multiple claims by not paying to multiple winners unless the pool ticket format is followed. It could be as simple as adding a "p" for pool ticket to the ticet number and would prevent the arguement of "I BOUGHT THAT TICKET BY MYSELF'. This would give the players more legal protection against greed!
That is a fantastic idea! Maybe a large faded block letter P on the ticket over the numbers. POOL. Then the MCD lady could of bought the P tickets and then said, hey I want to buy my own tickets, then buy 10 dollars worth, no P on it, then there is no question! Very simple, saves a lot of angst and lawyers!
Seems like the greediest people win the big one all the time. I said if I won I would share with my whole family I guess thats why I didn't win. LOL
Miranda Wilson is in for a rude awakening if she thinks she's going to keep the money from her winning ticket all to herself. She has no way to prove she bought that ticket on her own and no judge is going to rule in her favor. She should save herself the court costs and split the winnings with her co-workers.
Has it crossed anyones mind that maybe the winning ticket has one purchase on it. The pool would have 15 combinations on it. Maybe she has that to stand her ground with. However, if the video is correct, it is a man who bought the ticket anyway. If she is lying she should be cgarged with something, no clue what, but something, for causing all this garbage.
I only ran a football pool for 1 game a few years back, with the payout being quarterly scores and a final score. Guess what??? The game went into overtime and the 4th quarter score winner and the final score winner both claimed the remaining allotment! I will never, ever volunteer to run a pool again!!!!
Goingdigital
I agree with you. I ran a check pool for a while, what a pain in the Butt. Amazing what people will try for $20.00. Our football pool says "Final Score" and defines it. I guess someone else learned the hard way.
I never run pools anymore.
Money brings out the worst in people......
Easy solution. The Maryland lottery tickets have a number on the backside and they are numerical. If, she purchased them all at one time and one of the pool tickets was in that sequence Mirlande isn't as rich as she hopes.
If she bought them all together, and they are all in one sequence, how do you know whether her tickets were at the front of the sequence or the back of the sequence?