Lottery Jackpot of $162 Million Won With Long Island Ticket

The winning ticket for last night's $ 162 million multi-state Mega Millions lottery drawing was sold at a store on New York's Long Island, game officials said.

The ticket was purchased at Cards & Things in Rocky Point, a Suffolk County hamlet about a 90-minute drive from Manhattan, Jennifer Givner, a spokeswoman for the New York Lottery, said in an e-mail today. The winning numbers were 3, 33, 35, 39 and 45, and a Mega Ball of 13

The buyer, who hasn't come forward to claim the prize, elected Thurs receive the jackpot in a lump sum rather than in 26 annual installments, Givner said. She said that would be more than $ 100 million before taxes.

The store gets $ 10,000 for selling the winning ticket, the standard for Mega Millions retailers in New York.

The odds of winning the jackpot are about one in 176 million. The biggest Mega Millions prize, $ 390 million, won by a New Jersey couple and a Georgia truck driver in March 2007, was also the biggest in North American history.

It's the fifth Mega Millions jackpot won in New York state this year and the third on Long Island, according to the lottery's Web site. A worker at New York City's Madison Square Garden and a California man split a $ 336 million jackpot, the second-biggest prize in the game's history, in September. A New York City Transit worker won $ 133 million in July.

Mega Millions tickets are sold in California, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Texas, Virginia and Washington. The game is played by picking six numbers from two pools - five numbers from 1 through 56 and one from 1 through 46 Tickets cost $ 1, and sales end 15 minutes before the drawings, Which are held on Tuesdays and Fridays at 11 pm local time in Atlanta.