Eddie Nabors and married couple Elaine and Harold Messner have gone down as some of the most envied people on the planet after they struck lucky by sharing a staggering $390 million Mega Millions jackpot back in March, 2007.
Nabors, from Georgia, was just a simple 52 year old man working as a truck driver when he hit the winning ticket. It was just on a random moment that he decided to chance his lucky and purchase $10 worth of Mega Millions tickets when he saw the potential jackpot prize.
10 QUICK PICKS
Nabors said “I went in to get my coffee and the marquee on the machine said it was up to $355 million. I told the clerk, ‘Go ahead and give me 10 quick picks today,’ and she printed them out.”
Nabors was living with his mother and has three children with six grandchildren held no expectations going into the draw. However, one of those tickets he bought proved to be the one that would change his life. He attended a ceremony where he was presented with a winning cheque for $116.5 million that would amount to $80 million after taxes as a lump sum.
Nabors was quick to silence any talk about the money changing his life. He stated he would use the money to buy a new fishing boat so that he and his son can go bass fishing together. He also confirmed he was planning on paying off the mortgage for his mother’s house and buying new homes for his family.
He said “I’m just not one of those who will change. I’m just real laid back. I don’t see any changes coming.”
Elaine and Harold Messner were equally modest with their extraordinary winning sum. The couple also opted for the immediate lump sum meaning they would also receive $80 million after taxes.
Harold stated “We feel very fortunate and blessed. This is that early retirement we’ve always dreamed of. Now we can do all those things we said we would do once we retired.”
Elaine and Harold live in Cape May County, New Jersey and bought their winning ticket from a liquor store just around the corner from their home. They also had their numbers randomly chosen. Harold had previously been working as a self employed builder and Elaine worked as his secretary helping to manage the business side of things.
COULDN’T SLEEP
Harold revealed that he and Elaine did not manage to sleep a single wink of sleep after finding out they were in possession of one of the winning tickets. The couple did rumble some suspicion in their local area when shortly after the win neighbours noticed Harold putting up signs including ‘No Trespassing!’ and ‘Beware of the Dog’ with one neighbour even pointing out that the couple did not own a dog.
Harold added “In a lot of ways, we’re still recovering from the shock of winning all this money. I know this means we’re officially a retired couple, but past that, Elaine and I are still sorting all of this out. We have some ideas about what we want to do with this big win, but haven’t made any big decisions yet.”
The sort of winning lottery totals produced by the MegaMillions and Powerball lottery in the US are incredible compared to what you get in Europe and other parts of the world. The EuroMillions lottery is about the only one that comes close and that is often less than a tenth of the size of some of these huge rollover jackpots.