Mega Millions Jackpot Worth $1.5 Billion Still Not Claimed By Lucky Winner

South Carolina Mega Millions lottery officials said Tuesday the lone winner of the $1.5 billion jackpot — the second-highest sum of money offered in the history of the United States lottery — drawn Oct. 23, has not claimed the prize yet.

Although it has been three weeks since the historic Mega Millions drawing, no one has stepped forward to claim the little more than a billion dollars prize money. However the winner still has considerable amount of time to collect his or her prize. The deadline for collecting the winnings was up to 180 days from the date of drawing which gave the winner of the $1.5 billion lottery till April 21 to claim the jackpot, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

Mega Millions has officially confirmed there was only one winning ticket sold for Oct. 23 drawing that matched all the six numbers needed to score the jackpot and it was sold at a KC Mart in Simpsonville, South Carolina. There was a greater chance the identity of the winner might never be revealed as winners in South Carolina were allowed by state law to remain anonymous.

The unknown winner can either choose to receive annual installments of the prize money over three decades or take a $877.8 million lump-sum cash payment – most lottery winners tend to opt for latter option.

At the time, Mega Millions winning numbers were 28-70-5-62-65 and the mega ball was five.

The odds of drawing all six numbers in Mega Millions were one in nearly 302 million. In fact, there were more chances of a ticket holder getting a partial match to winning numbers, which also assured the individual a certain amount of prize money. Apart from the single grand prize winning ticket, 36 people in the country bought the $1 million-prize ticket and 419 hopefuls ended up with the $10,000 prize.

Following the final results of the $1.5 billion drawing, the South Carolina Education Lottery advised the single lucky winner on Twitter: "Our message to the $1.5 BILLION #Mega Millions jackpot winner: Sign the back of the ticket, place the ticket in a safe location, speak with a trusted advisor and CALL THE LOTTERY at 1-866-736-9819. Take a deep breath and enjoy the moment!"

Signing the ticket is the first step to ensuring no one will be able to claim your ticket if you happen to lose it or it gets stolen. The final step was to get in touch with your lottery retailer or lottery district office in order to start the process of claiming the reward.

The prize money for Mega Millions reached an all-time high last month because the last winning ticket was sold in July in California, after which it had been building up. If no winning ticket had been sold that time around too, the amount for the next Mega Millions drawings would have reached $2 billion.