The mammoth jackpot-winning ticket was sold at Sunshine Food and Gas in Cottonwood, a community of around 6,000 people in Northern California, south of Redding, according to the state lottery website.

However, the identity of the winner is not immediately known.

All of the white balls - numbers 3, 7, 37, 49, 55 - as well as the gold Mega Ball 6, were all matched in the lucky draw.

But the winner will likely only walk away with a quarter of the prize - which is around $550 million - if they accept the earnings as a lump sum, as almost all winners do.

After taxes are deducted, they will still be left with millions - a grand total of around $285 million. 

The lucky drawing comes after three months without anyone winning the top prize.

After no players won on Christmas Eve, the lottery jackpot sky-rocketed to its fifth-largest total. 

This is only the seventh time in history that the winning pot has reached the billion-dollar threshold.

The largest ever Mega Millions prize was $1.602 billion, which was won in August 2023 by a player in Neptune Beach, Florida. 

The headline-grabbing jackpot amount advertised in stores, gas stations and roadside billboards is not actually the amount lottery organizers have in the prize pool.

Instead, it is the total amount that would be paid to a winner in installments over 29 years - if the sum that organizers hold was invested in Treasury bonds. 

The figure is even higher when interest rates are higher, as they currently are.

Despite the game's long odds of 1 in 302.6 million, players continued to purchase tickets as the size of the grand prize grew. 

Regardless of where the winner claims the money, federal taxes will always be due, and they account for a whopping 37 percent of the prize amount. 

Winnings are taxed 24 percent upfront. But the total amount taken when filing will end up being 37 percent - as winners will likely be in the highest tax bracket.