Mega Millions Winner! $270M Illinois Jackpot Recalls First Winner In State — Who Got Death Threats

Thanks to the Mega Millions lottery, someone in Glendale Heights, Illinois, a small city about 40 minutes outside of Chicago, will soon be $270 million richer, as that single Illinois lottery player won the first Mega Millions jackpot of 2015 Friday night.

The big win was also the first time in more than two months that any player has hit all six numbers to take home a Mega Millions jackpot. The last winner big winner in the nationwide lottery game came back on November 7 when Harold Diamond — an 80-year-old retired school principal from upstate New York — won a massive $326 million jackpot.

The winning Mega Millions ticket was purchased at Bucky’s Express, a gas station at 1202 Bloomingdale Road in the Chicago suburb, and was the first Illinois Mega Millions jackpot winner since May 4 of 2012, and the eighth overall since the game first started selling tickets 10 years before that.

While the winner of the latest jackpot in Illinois remains unknown — perhaps even to him or herself as of Saturday — the huge Mega Millions win recalled an earlier time in the state, more than 30 years ago, when Mike Wittkowski, then a 28-year-old, newly engaged bachelor living on Chicago’s North Side, won what was in 1984 the single largest lottery jackpot in United States history.

Wittkowski’s total jackpot winnings, from the then-new Illinois state Lotto game? $40 million.

Now, 40 million bucks is a lot of dough by any reasonable person’s standards, but by the yardstick of today’s lottery winners, well, let’s put it this way. In the nationwide Powerball lottery, $40 million is the minimum prize.

The current record-holding jackpot is a Mega Millions prize of $656 million, won on March 30, 2012.

But when Wittkowski won his $40 million more than 30 years ago — a prize worth slightly over $90 million in today’s dollars — he created a national sensation. And that wasn’t always a good thing.

“The first couple of months were crazy. Insane. I was getting death threats and bomb threats,” said Wittkowski in a recent interview, crediting his family — with whom he split the winnings — for supporting him through the ordeal.

Less threatening, but just as burdensome, were the hundreds of strangers reaching out with an open palm, trying to talk him into handing over some of that cash.

“I had a lady who wrote me a 21-page typed letter and said she was down to her last $20, but she sent it to me registered mail,” Wittkowski said. “It cost her $19 just to send the letter.”

Wittkowski took his prize in 20 annual payments, which ran out more than 10 years ago. But he said at that time that he had invested wisely and never expected to take a “day job” again.

The winning Mega Millions numbers drawn Friday night at 10:59 pm in Atlanta, Georgia, were as follows.

26 — 32 — 44 — 45 — 58 Mega Ball 11

If Friday’s winner takes the payment in a single lump sum, the payout before taxes will be $177.3 million.