Have there been big Florida Lottery, Mega Millions or Powerball winners on New Year's Day?

C. A. Bridges, USA TODAY NETWORK - Florida
·4 min read

Ready to start the New Year as a newly minted millionaire?

Better hurry. No one won the Powerball on Christmas Day and the current estimated jackpot of $685 million is approaching top ten levels for Florida wins if it keeps rolling over. There are two Powerball drawings left in 2023 (Wednesday, Dec. 27 and Saturday, Dec. 30) and one on the first day of the new year.

Mega Millions is currently up to $73 million, with drawings on Tuesday, Dec. 26 and Friday, Dec. 29. The Florida Lotto is up to $30 million, with drawings left this year on Wednesday, Dec. 27 and Saturday, Dec. 30.

Have there ever been big lottery jackpot wins on New Year's before? Let's look.

Has anyone in Florida ever won the Powerball on New Year's Eve or New Year's Day?

Not yet. There have only been 11 Florida Powerball winners so far, and one of those — a winning $50 million ticket sold in Tampa in 2013 — went unclaimed.

In fact, according to Powerball's records, there have only been two winners on New Year's Eve or New Year's Day in the history of the game, and both of them were in its first year, 2003.

Norman & DeAnna Shue of Concord, North Carolina and Lisa Ensor of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania split a $221,500,00 jackpot in a drawing on Dec. 31, 2003. Both winners took lump sums and split $120,299,502.97.

The closest after that was a winner in Arkansas on Jan 2, 2010, who claimed the $25 million and took the $12,153,621.78 lump sum. They kept their name private.

Mega Millions, Powerball, Lotto: Here are Florida's top ten biggest lottery winners, so far

Has anyone in Florida ever won Mega Millions on New Year's Eve or New Year's Day?

Close. 20-year-old Shane Missler, of Port Richey became Mega Millions' second Florida winner when he claimed the $450 million jackpot from the Jan. 5, 2018 drawing with a ticket bought at a 7-Eleven at 7131 Ridge Road. They took the lump sum of $281,874,999.

Nationwide, there has only been one big New Year's winner, and it was a group. New Life 2019, LLC, 23 co-workers in Long Island, New York, scored big with a $437 million win on Jan. 1, 2019. Until this year, when a Howard Beach man named Johnnie Taylor won the $476 million Mega Millions jackpot in April, it was the highest lottery jackpot ever won in New York. The 23 winners split the lump sum payout, which came to $7.7 million each.

Other Mega Millions New Year's winners have included Laura Spears of Oakland County, Mississippi, who won $3 million on Dec. 31, 2021, and only found out because she stumbled across the notification in her email spam folder, and Gerard McMahon, of Bayside, New York, who won $1 million on Jan. 1, 2019.

Has anyone ever won the Florida Lottery on New Year's Eve or New Year's Day?

Almost immediately! Five winning tickets split a $31.5 million jackpot in the first year of the Florida Lotto. John Mitrovic of Largo, Sherry Mitrovic of Largo, Noonan E. Ross of Ocoee, Donald J. Wallace of Holly Hill and Lehman E. Ward of West Palm Beach all had winning numbers the night of Dec. 31, 1988.

And there have been a few since, according to the Florida Lottery's records:

  • Benito Rodriquez, Jr., Linda Rodriquez and Benito Rodriquez III of Tampa split a $10 million jackpot with Allen Pannell, Jr. of Knoxville, Tennessee and Doug Long of Fort Lauderdale on Jan. 1, 1994.

  • Herman Lee Wilgis, Jr., and Cheryl Smith of St. Augustine split a $10.04 million jackpot on Dec. 31, 1994 with Paula D. Miller of Lantana.

  • Craig G. Powell of Jacksonville started off the new century right by winning $16.9 million on Jan. 1, 2000 for a lump sum of $7,512,104.64.

  • Robert C. Michaels of Davie won $20 million on Jan. 1, 2005, and took the cash option of $5,693,838.96.

  • Olga Miyares of Miami won $6 million on Dec. 31, 2008 with a ticket she bought in Tavares.

There may be other New Year's winners between 2009 and 2012 but the Florida Lottery data is presently missing those years. No one has won a New Year's Eve or New Year's Day jackpot since 2012.

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Florida Lottery, Mega Millions, Powerball: Any New Year's winners?