Home The ultimate Christmas gift? Mega Millions $760M jackpot offered Tuesday night
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The ultimate Christmas gift? Mega Millions $760M jackpot offered Tuesday night

Crystal Graham
Christmas mega millions lottery jackpot
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Santa may deliver a little something extra under the Christmas tree this year for one lucky person, as the Mega Millions lottery jackpot tonight has grown to $760 million.

If there is a grand-prize winner tonight, it would be the largest Mega Millions jackpot ever in the month of December, just in time to make the holidays a whole lot brighter for one family.

No ticket matched all six numbers drawn Friday night – the white balls 36, 43, 52, 58 and 65, plus the gold Mega Ball 16.

If won, it would also be the eighth largest jackpot in Mega Millions history. The jackpot has been rolling since it was last won at $810 million in Texas on Sept. 10.

The last time the jackpot was close to this level in the days before Christmas was in 2013, when a $648 million prize was shared between winners in California and Georgia on Dec.17.

A big prize was also won on Dec.17, 2019, when an Ohio ticket-holder took home a $375 million jackpot.

Could this be the third Dec. 17 jackpot win in Mega Millions history?

In the 27 drawings of this current jackpot run that began on Sept. 13, there have been almost 17.8 million winning tickets sold.

These include 46 second-tier prizes of $1 million or more won in 20 different jurisdictions from coast to coast: California, Connecticut, Florida, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia and Wisconsin.

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 one in 302,575,350.

Crystal Graham

Crystal Graham

Crystal Abbe Graham is the regional editor of Augusta Free Press. A 1999 graduate of Virginia Tech, she has worked for 25 years as a reporter and editor for several Virginia publications, written a book, and garnered more than a dozen Virginia Press Association awards for writing and graphic design. She was the co-host of "Viewpoints," a weekly TV news show, and co-host of Virginia Tonight, a nightly TV news show on PBS. Her work on "Virginia Tonight" earned her a national Telly award for excellence in television.