Single Mega Millions $20M jackpot ticket drawn Tuesday night was sold in the Bronx

Though not quite the nearly three-quarter billion-dollar payout for one winning ticket in the record-setting $1.35 billion Mega Millions drawing on Friday the 13th, one winning ticket holder is no doubt mega-happy Wednesday.

New York Lottery officials announced that the one winning ticket in Tuesday night's $20 million Mega Millions drawing was sold at a grocery store in the Bronx.

Officials said the ticket containing the winning numbers was sold at the 170th Street Grocery, located at 160 East 170th St.

That ticket matched all five winning field numbers — 2, 12, 18, 24 and 39 — as well as the winning Mega Ball number, 18. The $20 million jackpot prize has a $10.6 million cash option after taxes.

Lottery officials said that nationwide there was one second-place winning ticket worth $1 million before taxes matching the five field numbers, but not the Mega Ball. That ticket was sold in Massachusetts.

Just last Friday — Jan. 13 — one winning Mega Millions ticket, sold in Maine, hit for the fourth-largest lottery prize in U.S. history, a $1.35 billion jackpot prize worth a cool $724.6 million after taxes.

That ticket had the winning numbers: 30, 43, 45, 46, 61 and 14.

Lottery officials said four of the 14 second-place winning tickets matching the five field numbers but not the Mega Ball were sold in New York, including one at the ShopRite supermarket on Old Country Road in Plainview. The other three New York second-place winners in that drawing were sold in Long Island City, Manhattan and Newburgh, officials said.

The largest jackpot in U.S. history was $2.04 billion in the Powerball drawing of Nov. 8, and the second-largest was the $1.586 billion Powerball jackpot drawn on Jan. 13, 2016. The third-largest jackpot was a $1.537 billion Mega Millions drawing on Oct. 23, 2018.

By John Valenti

john.valenti@newsday.com

John Valenti, a reporter at Newsday since 1981, has been honored nationally by the Associated Press and Society of the Silurians for investigative, enterprise and breaking news reporting, as well as column writing, and is the author of “Swee'pea,” a book about former New York playground basketball star Lloyd Daniels. Valenti is featured in the Emmy Award-winning ESPN 30-for-30 film “Big Shot.”