5 Largest Lottery Wins Ever

For most people, they don’t really pay attention to how much a lottery jackpot is until it starts inching closer to being in record territory. This is when you see lines at convenience stores start getting longer as people purchase their tickets in hopes of being the one that sets the new record for winning the biggest jackpot.

There have been some instances of lottery jackpots climbing to numbers that could support an entire small country over the years. We think of famous numbers that came up during games like Powerball, the Big Game, or Mega Millions. Out of all of the contests that have been held, a few stand out as being the ones to pay out the most. Here are the five largest lottery wins ever, with more certainly to make the list in the future.

Manuel Franco

In early 2019, Manuel Franco became the third-highest-earning lottery winner with a jackpot of $768.4 million. The Wisconsin native purchased $10 worth of lottery tickets at a Speedway in New Berlin. Little did he know, one of those tickets would change his life. Franco himself admitted he had a good feeling about the tickers and winked at the camera on his way out. Before the win, he was employed at Target and lived a normal life. Now he’s enjoying the $326 million lump sum in winnings. 

Mavis Wanczyk

In 2017, Massachusetts native Mavis Wanczyk won an incredible $758.7 million Powerball Jackpot. Wanczyk chose the lump sum as the way to collect her winnings and ended up taking home over $300 million. She bought five tickets in total, two tickets with randomly generated sets of numbers and the other three tickets with chosen numbers, some of which were combinations of her family members’ birth dates. She purchased the tickets at the Pride Station and Store in Chicopee Massachusetts. The store received a $50,000 bonus for having sold the ticket. 

John and Lisa Robinson 

John and Lisa Robinson are a couple from a small town in Tennessee who didn’t let the lottery change them. They won a third of the $1.6 billion jackpot after purchasing one of the three winning tickets, the two others having been sold in California and Florida. The couple took the lump sum payout of over $300 million. They don’t intend on doing the things most of us would when winning such an enormous sum of money. They’ve told news outlets they never wanted that lifestyle in the first place and money hasn’t changed that. Instead, they decided to pay off debts and donate, holding on to the remaining money. 

Maureen Smith and David Kaltschmidt

Another couple who took part in the $1.6 billion jackpot winnings is Maureen Smith and her husband David Kaltschmidt from Melbourne Beach Florida. The couple told the media that they have a tradition of buying lottery tickets from their local Publix grocery store as well as playing the same numbers for the last 30 years. Their lucky numbers finally struck gold in 2016. The couple chose to take the lump sum payout, due to their age and not knowing if they’d be around to receive payments throughout the years. They still live the same lives, albeit with more stress and even a couple of fancy new cars. 

Scott Godfrey

Scott Godfrey, a kind-hearted man from Morro Bay California, was the lucky winner of the $699 million jackpot in 2021. He bought the 10 tickets from his local Albertsons. He chose quick picks for all of the tickets and the very first ticket of the bunch ended up being the one that won it all. He decided on the lump sum payout of over $490 million, with plans to donate a large portion of it through a foundation set up by him and his family.