Mega Millions jackpot increases to an estimated 1.15 for holiday drawing

CNN
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This holiday season, one lucky Mega Millions player may receive a belated Christmas gift of $1.15 billion.

With no one winning the jackpot on Christmas Eve, Friday’s top prize hit an estimated $1.15 billion — the largest prize ever offered in the month of December. That’s a cash prize of $516.1 million.

If a ticket wins the top prize, it would be just the seventh time in the game’s history that the jackpot has topped $1 billion, the lottery said. The six won to date were awarded in South Carolina in 2018, Michigan in 2021, Illinois in 2022, Maine and Florida in 2023 and New Jersey last March. The Florida prize is the game’s record jackpot of $1.602 billion.

“We know many people are likely to receive tickets for Friday’s draw as a Christmas present, and what a gift it would be if you ended up with a ticket worth a $1.15 billion jackpot,” Joshua Johnston, Chief Executive Officer of Mega Millions. consortium, said in a statement. “I can’t think of a better way to celebrate the holidays—whether it’s Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, the winter solstice, or any other way people choose to celebrate the season—than to help fulfill the dreams that follow with a prize like this. and prizes to be won at all levels of the game.”

Tuesday’s winning numbers were: 11, 14, 38, 45, 46 and Mega Ball 3.

Although no tickets matched all six numbers in Tuesday night’s drawing, four tickets still won $1 million each by matching the first five numbers. Those tickets were sold in California, Missouri, Wyoming and Pennsylvania, according to Mega Millions website.

It’s been three months since a Houston-area resident claimed the last jackpot, $810 million, after buying the winning ticket at a Sugar Land gas station. Before that, a $552 million jackpot was claimed in Illinois on June 4, and a $1.128 billion win was won in New Jersey on March 26.

If the jackpot is won on Friday, it would be the fifth largest jackpot in Mega Millions history.

The holiday drawing is part of what the Mega Millions organization calls “most unusual jackpot years.” The jackpot has been won just three times so far in 2024 — the fewest wins in a single year since the game began in 2002, the lottery said.

Next year, a shot at the jackpot will be a little more expensive. Beginning in April 2025, tickets will cost $5 per game, Mega Millions announced this October, along with a wave of “improvements”, including improved odds, more frequent and bigger jackpots and bigger starting jackpots.

This is the second time the lottery has raised its ticket price since the game began in 2002, according to Mega Millions.

Mega Millions tickets are sold in 45 states, Washington, DC and the US Virgin Islands, with drawings at 11:00 PM Tuesdays and Fridays in Atlanta, Georgia. Tickets cost $2 and the odds of winning the jackpot are approximately 1 in 302.5 million.