Arizona’s Biggest Winners

Arizona has crowned its first ever Mega Millions winners. An anonymous husband and wife from Glendale won a jackpot worth $410 million on Tuesday, June 9th, 2020, making them the state’s biggest (and only) Mega Millions winners and the biggest lottery winners in Arizona’s history.

The prize was the 11th-biggest Mega Millions jackpot ever given away and was the first time in a year that it surpassed $400 million. The winners decided to take the cash lump sum value of $319.9 million before withholdings, which amounted to about $76.8 million in federal taxes and $15.3 million in Arizona state taxes. The winners took home approximately $227.8 million.

The legislation to allow lottery winners in Arizona to remain anonymous if their prize is worth $100,000 or more was only enacted in April 2019, so the identity of the state’s next-biggest winner was made public after his win in November 2012. Matthew Good split a Powerball jackpot worth $587 million with another winner from Missouri, taking a lump sum payout worth $192 million.

Maria Herrera from Glendale is the only other winner from Arizona to have hit a jackpot worth more than $100 million. She claimed a $188 million Powerball jackpot in June 2015 and went for the cash lump sum of $119 million before taxes. Like Matthew Good before her, Herrera’s name was initially kept confidential but was released after a public records request was filed.

Arizona 9

A syndicate called the Arizona 9 claimed the biggest group win in the state’s history when they won half of a $94 million Powerball jackpot. The syndicate, started by a group of co-workers at an architectural firm, usually only played the lottery when the jackpot reached $100 million, but decided to play a little earlier on that occasion. The decision paid off and the group cashed a jackpot worth just over $47 million.