Worldwide Lottery Jackpot Record

Do you play the lottery? If so, you would probably be more than happy to win a million dollars in your local lottery draw. But have you ever wondered what is the most possible money that you could ever possibly win? How high can the lottery jackpot grow? To answer these questions, it would be good to know what the worldwide lottery jackpot record is.

The biggest lottery jackpot in the world was a Power ball prize drawn on December 25, 2002. It was $314.9 million and was won by a man in West Virginia named Andrew Whittaker Jr. To this date, he holds the record for winning the biggest jackpot, worldwide.

Although that December 2002 jackpot is the worldwide lottery jackpot record, there have been many more huge jackpots won by a single person. Here are the next biggest, in order of jackpot size:

* On July 2, 2004, Geraldine Williams of Boston, Massachusetts won a Mega Millions jackpot of $294 million.

* On September 16, 2005, Harold Lerner of New Jersey won a $258 million Mega Millions jackpot.

* In August of 2009, a person in Bagnone, Italy anonymously claimed a SuperEnalotto jackpot of EUR147,807,299 ($219,419,942 USD).

* In July of 2005, Dolores McNamara of Limerick, Ireland won a EuroMillions jackpot of EUR115,436,126 ($171,364,935 USD).

* In May of 2009, a woman in Mallorca, Spain anonymously claimed a Euromillions jackpot of EUR126,231,764 ($187,391,060 USD).

The above jackpots hold the world record for the biggest amounts of money one by a single person. There have been other worldwide lotteries that have had jackpots in the above range, but I didn't include them because they were won by multiple tickets or by groups of people that split the prize.

Now you know that you could win jackpots well into the hundreds of millions of dollars level. Perhaps, one day, there will be a new record billion dollar jackpot and you could win it and go into the record books!

Tino writes a blog about lottery winners stories. It includes stories about people worldwide that have won big jackpots in games such as Lotto 6/49, Lotto Max, Powerball, and EuroMillions.