A Rockmart man is celebrating a mega Georgia Lottery win. Mark Staffa, 33, matched all of the winning numbers in Tuesday’s Mega Millions drawing and won a $42-million jackpot.
The win was claimed Wednesday in a 4 p.m. ceremony in Atlanta. Staffa discovered his win Wednesday morning while checking the Mega Millions Web site.
“I couldn’t stand up. I just sat there,” he said. “My body went kind of numb. I started breathing erratically, I guess.”
Winning numbers for the drawing were: 16-19-39-42-44, and the Mega Ball was 38. Scott’s Market, located at 2515 Gold Mine Road in Dallas, sold the lucky Quik Pik ticket.
Staffa, a software engineer, wants to help his parents retire and plans to travel the world, especially Europe.
“I’ve been a LEGO builder my whole life, and LEGO was established in Denmark,” he shared. “So that’s tops on my European tour.”
According to Staffa, he is still sorting through other future plans. “There’s a slew of stuff I want to do,” he said. “I still can’t believe it.”
Scott’s Market will receive a $25,000 retailer incentive bonus. Any Georgia Lottery retailer that sells a winning Mega Millions jackpot ticket can earn the $25,000 retailer incentive bonus payment.
If more than one winning jackpot ticket is sold in Georgia, the retailers selling the winning tickets will share the $25,000 retailer incentive bonus.
As with all other Georgia Lottery games, proceeds from Mega Millions will benefit education in the state of Georgia, the Georgia Lottery Corp. stated. Since its first year, the Georgia Lottery Corp. has returned more than $10.3 billion to the state of Georgia for education.
All Georgia Lottery profits go to pay for specific educational programs including Georgia’s HOPE Scholarship Program and Georgia’s pre-K Program. More than 1.1 million students have received HOPE, and more than 940,000 4-year-olds have attended the statewide, voluntary prekindergarten program.
