17 siblings share $20 million lottery jackpot

Sigrid Endreson picked the winning ticket and then decided to share it with her family.

A sister who won a $20 million lottery jackpot is sharing her winnings with her seventeen siblings and twenty people overall.

The other three are the children of a brother who died a few years ago.

The family from New Jersey, who are largely based in Ocean County, have had a few tough years, after some members lost their homes during the Superstorm Sandy, as well as through the economic downturn.

However, such bad luck was reversed on Thursday, when the Enderson family met to share the news of their $20,100,000 turnaround in fortune at the Beachwood Community Center.

Sigrid Endreson is the family member who picked the winning ticket and then decided to share it with her family. She won the Pick 6 with the lucky numbers 3, 12, 18, 34, 35, 42.

Her brother John Endreson, 69, lost his home during Hurricane Sandy, and spent his entire savings to rebuild it.

“The hardest part was seeing other people that were devastated,” he said. “I was able to redo my house and help my family and my brothers. I was quite fortunate. I just feel so lucky. And this is just the icing on the cake.”

The winning cheque.

Another sibling described how their late mother started playing the lottery regularly years ago and would always say that all her children would get a piece of the winnings. Mr Endreson acknowledged that his mother’s outlook on winning the lottery was very significant.

“Things are looking up, thanks to the state of New Jersey and my mom,” he said.

The winners decided to take the lump sum rather than an annuity that pays out each year, making the jackpot $14 million. After taxes, the take-home prize is about $10 million, officials said.

New Jersey Lottery officials had originally identified the winner as a mother with a sprawling family who planned on splitting the jackpot with her sixteen brothers and sisters.

The Endreson family at the press conference announcing their winnings.

Indeed, a statement released Tuesday described the family: “The patriarch of the family emigrated from Norway in the early 20th century. Later, he met the family’s matriarch on the Jersey Shore, where they remained and set their roots in Ocean County. Through hard work and perseverance they raised a family and grew a successful business that is still in existence today.”

A spokeswoman for the state lottery, Judy Drucker, said that the winner, Sigrid Endreson, was one of the seventeen living children, ranging in age from 53 to 76, of the couple described in the statement.

This is the second major lottery prize for Ocean County in the last year. A group of co-workers at the Ocean County Vehicle Maintenance Garage in Toms River, dubbed “Ocean’s 16,” split $86 million from a Powerball jackpot last August.

Mr Drucker told reporters that the winning ticket was a single wager, a $1 Quick Pick, meaning the player had just one set of randomly generated numbers.

The odds of matching all six numbers are 1 in 13,983,816, according to the lottery.

Originally the family wanted to keep their identities secret. However, New Jersey law requires the names of lottery winners must be released.