Bashful US Mega Million winners yet to step forward

The winners of the record $656 million Mega Millions jackpot have yet to step forward to collect their winnings, three days after the draw, lottery officials said. The winning numbers -- 2, 4, 23, 38, 46 with Mega Ball 23 -- were announced Friday night. Within hours, it emerged that the prize would be split three ways by those who bought winning tickets in Illinois, Kansas and Maryland. But as of Monday afternoon, no-one had stepped forward, despite a report in the New York Post that one ticket belonged to a McDonald's employee in Baltimore whose colleagues disputed its ownership. "There were no winners today coming in to claim their Mega Millions jackpot," Maryland State Lottery Agency director of communications Carole Everett told AFP in an email. "As expected, we are still waiting for a winner -- complete with ticket in hand -- to come forward," she said. Millions of Americans lined up in 42 states, the District of Columbia and the US Virgin Islands hoping to suddenly strike it rich, despite having only a one-in-176-million chance of winning. The New York Post quoted Mirlande Wilson, a single mother of seven living in Baltimore, as saying that she intended to present her winning ticket to Maryland lottery officials sometime on Monday. She claimed that her ticket was not among those she had bought in a pool with fellow employees at a McDonald's fast-food outlet where she works -- a version that her colleagues disputed. Staff at the Baltimore area 7-Eleven convenience store that sold the winning Maryland ticket said lottery officials had viewed in-store surveillance video and concluded that a man had bought the lucky ticket late Friday.