Three ticket holders have got all six numbers in the $640m Mega Millions lottery draw – putting them in line to receive $154m each as a lump sum. Lottery players in Maryland, Illinois and Kansas hold winning tickets, according to lottery organizers.

The winning numbers were 46, 23, 38, 4 and 2, while the Mega ball was 23 in last night’s draw that saw Americans vie for the biggest lottery jackpot in world history as 1.5billion tickets were sold across the country.

A Baltimore video producer, Tom Kreft, named by Wall Street Journal reporter Lauren Schuker as the winner today denied to Mail Online that he had won.

Carole Everett, director of communications for the Maryland Lottery, said the last time a ticket from the state won a major national jackpot was 2008 when a ticket sold for $24 million.

‘We’re thrilled,’ she said. ‘We’re due and excited.’

Bud, near St. Louis. The winner used a quick pick to select the numbers, he said.

Lang said each winning ticket was expected to be worth more than $213 million before taxes.

The estimated jackpot dwarfs the previous $390 million record, which was split in 2007 by two winners who bought tickets in Georgia and New Jersey.

Americans spent nearly $1.5 billion for a chance to hit the jackpot, which amounts to a $462 million lump sum and around $347 million after tax.

The average American was more likely to be killed in a mass murder than win the jackpot. Fifty three times more likely, in fact. Dying in an avalanche sometime in the next decade is 160 times more likely than winning.

Really Trying got in line to buy a ticket- but unsurprisingly has not stepped forward to claim any winnings.

Unfortunately, not all Americans had a chance of winning the biggest jackpot in history as Mega Millions is only played in 42 states.

However residents in other non-playing states can purchase tickets in the states they are sold in as there is no residency requirement to play and win.

At 173-million-to-one, the odds of scoring the largest lottery win in US history are so long they’re literally unfathomable. And mathematicians say there’s no way to improve them — except by buying more tickets.

In theory, with such a massive jackpot would be possible to ‘invest’ $173 million to play every number combination and then rake in $560 million in winnings.

That is, at $1 a ticket, and 173 million possible combinations, you could play every number and increase the odds of winning to 100 percent and rake in more than 320 percent profit. (Though, that begs the question: ‘If you’ve got $173 million laying around, why are you playing the lottery?’)

The three winning tickets are less surprising as there was only a 3 per cent chance there is only one winning ticket.

We don’t yet know how the three winners revealed so far chose their numbers or how many tickets they bought.

There is a theory that playing certain numbers can help increase the odds of winning.

A lot of lottery players are superstitious – buying tickets with birthdays or other significant numbers.

But Matthew Vea, a computer programmer who developed a computer analysis to track Mega Millions winning numbers since 2005, said he has found no pattern – though higher numbers tend to be picked more often.

The Mega Millions lottery is designed to select five balls with numbers 1 through 56 and a sixth ball numbered 1 to 46 at random.

That means, at least in theory, no number combination is more likely to be selected than any other.

However, numbers 48 and 36 have appeared more than any others – about 11 percent of the time.