The Mega Millions lottery jackpot has increased to an estimated $1.15 billion after no ticket matched all six numbers in the Christmas Eve drawing.
The winning numbers were white balls 11, 14, 38, 45 and 46, plus the gold Mega Ball 3.
The next drawing on Friday, Dec. 27, if won, will be the fifth largest jackpot in the game’s history.
“We know that many people will likely receive tickets to Friday’s drawing as holiday gifts, and what a gift that would turn out to be if you ended up with a ticket worth a $1.15 billion jackpot,” said Joshua Johnston, lead director for the Mega Millions consortium.
“I can’t think of a better way to celebrate the holidays – whether Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, the Winter Solstice or any other way people choose to celebrate the season – than by helping fulfill the dreams that come with a prize like this and prizes that will be won at all levels of the game.”
Mega Millions winners
In the Dec. 24 drawing, there were a total of 4,292,338 winning tickets across all non-jackpot prize levels.
Four tickets matched the five white balls for the game’s second-tier prize; they were sold in California, Missouri, Pennsylvania and Wyoming.
In the 30 drawings since the jackpot was last won at $810 million in Texas on Sept. 10, there have been more than 25.7 million winning tickets across all prize tiers.
These include 60 second-tier prizes of $1 million or more, won in 25 different jurisdictions from coast to coast: Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.
Mega Millions is the only lottery game that has now produced seven jackpots greater than $1 billion.
The six won to date were all were awarded in different states:
- South Carolina in 2018
- Michigan in 2021
- Illinois in 2022
- Maine and Florida in 2023
- New Jersey last March
The Florida prize on August 8, 2023, is the game’s current record jackpot at $1.602 billion.
Ticket information
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.
Half of the proceeds from the sale of each Mega Millions ticket remains in the state where the ticket was sold, where the money supports designated good causes and retailer commissions.
Drawings are conducted at 11 p.m. on Tuesdays and Fridays.
The overall odds of winning any Mega Millions prize are one in 24; the odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 302,575,350.
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Crystal Graham
