$197M Ticket To Ride

A lucky Boston cab driver may have picked up his last fare, reports CBS News Correspondent Jacqueline Adams.

He hasn't surfaced yet, but Patrick Okasala, an African immigrant who drives a taxi 60 hours a week, may just hold the ticket for the largest lottery prize ever worn by a single individual: $197 million.

Town Taxi owner Jack Ford said Okasala was in line at the airport when he made his big discovery.

He asked a cabby next to him for a newspaper and looked up the daily numbers. None of the other cabbies believed him when he announced he won, but when they saw the ticket, the taxi area at the airport erupted into chaos, Ford said.

Later that day, dispatcher Amir Lagari took a call from a driver who said his name was Patrick and that they are never going to see him again.

Friends say neither the Nigerian immigrant, his wife nor their three kids are answering the door in their humble working class neighborhood outside of Boston.

"If it's true, I'm glad the winnings are going to someone who is working their way up from the bottom, and not somebody who's already well-to-do," Lagari told the Boston Herald. "I hope it's one of us. I really do."

The winner has a year to claim the prize, which can be taken in a lump sum of about $70.2 million after taxes, or in 26 annual payments of about $5.1 million after taxes.

The winning numbers for Tuesday's drawing were 12, 17, 22, 33 and 44 with the Big Money Ball of 25. The odds of winning the Big Game were 76 million to one.

The lucky winner hit the Big Game's jackpot with all five lotto numbers and the Big Money Ball number.

The single ticket matching all six numbers was sold at a Star Market grocery store in Boston near Fenway Park, Massachusetts state lottery officials said.

The Star Market will get $50,000 for being the vendor of the winning ticket and another $10.2 million will go to Massachusetts cities and towns, said Edward Lashman, acting executive director of the Massachusetts State Lottery Commission.

After no one picked all six numbers in last weeks drawing, officials increased the Big Game jackpot by $30 million, the game's second biggest one-drawing jump. The jackpot had gotten so large because no one had won it since Feb. 2.