Mega Millions jackpot surges to $1.1B with no big winner last night
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The Mega Millions jackpot for Tuesday will be more than $1 billion after no ticket matched all the winning numbers drawn Friday night.
The estimated $1.1 billion jackpot with a cash option of $525.8 million would potentially be the 10th biggest in U.S. lottery history and the sixth time in six years the jackpot has topped $1 billion, lottery officials said.
Friday’s winning Mega Millions numbers were: 3, 8, 31, 35 and 44, plus the gold Mega Ball 16. If the jackpot is won next Tuesday, it would be the fifth largest prize in the history of Mega Millions.
Larger than usual ticket sales due to the increasing jackpot size could push the top prize even higher in the next several days before the next drawing at 11 p.m. on Tuesday.
No one has hit the Mega Millions jackpot since Dec. 8 when two tickets sold at the same California gas station hit a $394 million jackpot. Both tickets were bought at a Chevron station in the Encino area of Los Angeles. Since then, 29 drawings have been held without a top prize winner.
In Friday night’s drawing, there were 2,564,114 winning tickets across all prize tiers.
Six tickets matched the five white balls to win the game’s second-tier prize. One, sold in Virginia, is worth $3 million because it included the optional Megaplier, which was 3X Friday night.
The other five, one each in California, Florida, Illinois, Nebraska and Texas, win the standard second-tier prize. Across the country, 80 tickets matched four white balls plus the Mega Ball to win the third-tier prize. Twelve of those are worth $30,000 each because they also included the optional Megaplier. The other 68 third-tier winning tickets take home the standard $10,000 each, lottery officials said.
The odds of a $2 ticket winning the jackpot by matching five numbers and the Mega Ball are 302,575,350 to 1. Players have a 1 in 12,607,306 chance of a ticket matching five numbers but not the Mega Ball and winning at least $1 million. The odds of matching four numbers plus the Mega Ball for a prize valued of at least $10,000 are 931,001 to 1.
Mega Millions drawings are held on Tuesday and Friday in 45 states, along with Washington, D.C. and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
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