The founder of the fast-food chain Raising Cane’s bought a $2 Mega Millions national lottery ticket for each of his 50,000 employees, the day before the potential jackpot which reached $810 million, with a cash option of 489 .9 million.
“As soon as we learned about the importance of this jackpot, we couldn’t miss the chance to win the Mega Millions jackpot and share it with our ever-supportive team,” founder Todd Graves said in a statement on Monday. hurry. “None of what we do at Cane would be possible without our team, so we’re always looking for ways to bring them a bit more fun, and if we’re lucky, a surprise on Wednesday morning.”
“Times are tough there,” Raising Cane CEO AJ Kumaran told CNN. “(Employees) see it at their gas stations and gas pumps, they see it on their grocery store shelves…Things aren’t exactly easy these days, so when we saw there was a chance to not just have a little fun, but maybe earn some extra money for our people, we wanted to do that.”
Raising Cane’s specialty is chicken fingers, and the chain has 700 locations in 35 states and Guam.
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“Buying 50,000 lottery tickets is harder than you think! ” Fallen down tweeted Monday night. “Hoping to share the winning jackpot with our 50,000 @RaisingCanes Crew.”
Kumaran said if one of the 50,000 tickets produced a winner, the prize would be divided equally among all employees. He called it a “collective ticket for everyone”. Kumaran said if Tuesday night’s draw did not result in a winner, channel officials would play again. “If there’s no winner, we’re going to buy until there’s a winner,” he told CNN.
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For the record: the winning numbers for Tuesday night’s Mega Millions draw were 07, 29, 60, 63, 66, with the golden “mega ball” 15.
Early Wednesday morning, WHIO-TV reported that no one had matched all six numbers to win the ultimate prize. There were a few partial winners: According to the lottery, a ticket sold in Ohio matched five numbers, plus the Megaplier bonus, scoring $3 million. Eight other tickets – two each sold in New Jersey and New York, and one each sold in California, Florida, Illinois and Ohio – matched five numbers, winning $1 million each.
It looks like Raising Cane management is about to buy another $100,000 ticket.
Mega Millions is a national lottery. Four Mega Millions jackpots have been won this year, in California, New York, Minnesota and Tennessee. The biggest jackpot of all time – $1.537 billion – was won in South Carolina in October 2018.
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Because no one matched six numbers in Tuesday night’s draw, the total Mega Millions jackpot is now estimated at $1.02 billion. The next draw will be Friday at 11 p.m. Eastern Time.