Mega Millions is on track to deliver the largest grand prize in the game’s history with an estimated jackpot for Tuesday’s drawing at $1.55 billion.
The game’s record jackpot was $1.537 billion on Oct. 23, 2018.
No ticket matched all six numbers drawn Friday night – the white balls 11, 30, 45, 52 and 56, plus the gold Mega Ball 20.
“It’s exciting to watch Mega Millions grow,” said Georgia Lottery President and CEO Gretchen Corbin, lead director of the Mega Millions Consortium. “As the jackpot climbs ever higher, we thank our players and retailers for their support, which benefits the many good causes funded by our participating lotteries.”
While this jackpot run has produced significant revenues for good causes and for the lottery retailers that sell the game, it has also produced tens of millions of winning tickets for players.
In the 31 drawings since the last jackpot was won on April 18, there have been more than 36.6 million winning tickets at all non-jackpot prize levels, ranging from $2 up to $5 million.
These include 62 second-tier prizes of $1 million or more, won in 27 different jurisdictions from coast to coast: Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin.
In the August 4 drawing, there were 5,331,114 winning tickets at all prize levels. Nine tickets matched the five white balls to win the game’s second-tier prize. Two are worth $2 million each because they included the optional Megaplier (available in most states with an extra $1 purchase), which was 2X for this drawing; they were sold in Michigan and Tennessee.
Another Match 5-winning ticket was sold in Tennessee for the standard $1 million second-tier prize. Six other tickets also win $1 million, one each in Louisiana, Missouri, Nebraska, New York, Oklahoma and Texas.
Across the country, 128 tickets matched four white balls plus the Mega Ball to win the third-tier prize. Twenty-four of those tickets are worth $20,000 each, because they also included the optional Megaplier. The other 104 win the standard $10,000 each.
Mega Millions is the only lottery game that has awarded four jackpots exceeding $1 billion – one each in 2018, 2021, 2022 and 2023; one more – probably a new record prize – will soon be added to the mix.
Tickets are sold in 45 states, Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Tickets are $2 each; in most jurisdictions, players can add the Megaplier for an additional $1 to multiply their non-jackpot prizes.
Drawings are conducted at 11 p.m. Eastern Time on Tuesdays and Fridays.
The odds of matching all six numbers to win the jackpot are 1 in 302,575,350. The odds of winning any prize are 1 in 24.
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Crystal Graham
