The lottery has been a very hot topic around the office as of late. With jackpot payouts reaching levels close to $2 billion — yes, that’s a ‘billion’ with a ‘b’—it has me thinking about what it would be like to win that kind of cash.

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How many billionaires are made overnight? And how many of them live in Maine? Well, we know of, at the very least, one. Well, kind of.

Anne Kitzman, Thinkstock
Anne Kitzman, Thinkstock
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Let's take a moment to reminisce about Maine's biggest lottery jackpot, which happened earlier this year. On January 13th, a historic jackpot of $1.35 billion was claimed in the Mega Millions game. The staggering prize was won by a single ticket holder in our Pine Tree State, who chose to remain anonymous.

The winning ticket was sold at Hometown Gas & Grill in Lebanon, which was also awarded $50,000 for being the fortunate retailer.

Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images
Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images
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If you were the lucky winner, would you choose to remain anonymous or embrace your newfound wealth and flaunt it with pride? I feel like folks would immediately know that I won some cash if I won the lottery. I’m not sure if I’d divert too, too drastically from my already established financial habits, but that’s also super easy to say when you haven’t won the millions. 

“Oh, I’d still be humble and I’d save.” Yeah, right.

Whether the next billionaire is made in Maine or not, one thing's for sure: I know that every Mainer would much rather the money go to one of us than to someone from any of the other 49 states. That's something we can all agree on.

LOOK: The largest lottery jackpots in US history

Stacker compiled a list of the 15 largest lottery jackpots in U.S. history from news reports and lottery press releases. [This list is current as of July 25, 2023.]

Gallery Credit: Chandler Friedman

Here are the Odds of Winning the Powerball Jackpot Compared to Other Life Events

With all of the monster lottery jackpots we've seen over the past few years, we decided to take a look at the odds of winning. Clearly, winning the Powerball jackpot is a long shot, especially in comparison to the chances of these other real-life events happening.

Here's What Mainers Would Buy If They Won Big Lottery Jackpots

This hands down proves that Mainers are the most generous (and sarcastic) humans on the planet.

Gallery Credit: Jadd

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