Two Florida women truly defied the odds after winning $4 million cash prizes in the Mega Millions lottery on the same day, and in the same town, in stores less than half a mile apart.
Reana Mahaney, 60, and Megan Chora, 40, of Largo, Florida, may never have met, but both became millionaires after cashing in tickets that were both bought at Publix Grocery Stores.
According to lottery officials and Google Maps, the stores where the two women bought their winning tickets are 0.3 miles apart – roughly a seven-minute walk.
Chora drew her ticket at the Publix, located at 10500 Ulmerton Road in Largo, while Mahaney drew her ticket at the store located at 10411 Ulmerton Road. Both stores subsequently received a $5,000 bonus commission.
The drawing was held June 11 and Chora was first to cash in her ticket on October 30 and Mahaney showed up November 5, officials said.
Both tickets matched all five white ball numbers in the popular lottery game, but didn’t match the Mega Ball, Florida Lottery officials said in news releases.
That resulted in runner-up prizes of $1 million each. However, the women also spent an extra dollar for the Megaplier and that quadrupled their prizes.
The odds of winning second-level prizes in Mega Millions are one in 12,607,306, according to Mega Millions. However, a rare coincidence such as the wins in Largo is not unheard of.
In June two winning tickets for a Mega Millions jackpot advertised at $395 million were both sold at the same Chevron gas station in Encino, California. One of the winners, F. Lahijani, claimed half that prize money on June 25.
For each ticket sold in that case, the retailer earned a bonus of $987,500 for a grand total of more than $1.9 million – the highest bonus ever received by a single retailer in California Lottery history.
“This was only made possible by the fact that the same store sold two jackpot-winning tickets over two separate transactions,” California Lottery spokesperson Carolyn Becker, said at the time.
“This has never happened before, and we want to congratulate the owners of this particular retail location!”
