It is often said that the annual Christmas lottery in Spain, dubbed El Gordo (The Fat One), is the largest in the world. In 2003 its prize fund reached (converting euros to approximate dollars) $2,200,000,000 with a first prize of $470,000,000 and second prize of $235,000,000. However, every number entered in this lottery is on 1,900 tickets which are often sold in fractions (usually tenths). Thus, the El Gordo prize is guaranteed to be split thousands of ways, and is not comparable to the winner-take-all style drawings popular elsewhere.
The largest draw prize in a lottery was the $363 million Big Game jackpot of May 9, 2000. Since this game was relaunched as Mega Millions in May 2002, its jackpot has never exceeded half the record despite its lengthened odds. The May 2000 prize being split between two winners, the largest single Big Game or Mega Millions winner remains Maria Grasso of Massachusetts, who won $197 million annuity value (taking a $104 million pre-tax lump sum) in the drawing of April 6th 1999.
The largest single winner of any lottery prize was Andrew J. Whittaker Jr. of West Virginia, who won $314.9 million in the record Powerball drawing of December 25th 2002. Opting as most large prize winners do for the lump sum, his after-tax prize has been variously reported as $111,681,349 and $113,386,407.77.
The record annuity-value prizes in the largest state lottery games in the United States have been: