Mega Millions jackpot soars to an estimated $1.15 billion for holiday drawing
By Lauren Mascarenhas and Dalia Faheid, CNN
(CNN) — This holiday season, a lucky Mega Millions player might receive a $1.15 billion belated Christmas gift.
With no one winning the jackpot on Christmas Eve, Friday’s grand prize hit an estimated $1.15 billion – the largest prize ever offered in the month of December. That’s a $516.1 million cash prize.
If a ticket wins the grand prize, it would be just the seventh time in the game’s history that the jackpot has soared past $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 at $1.602 billion.
“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,” Joshua Johnston, lead director for the Mega Millions Consortium, said in a statement. “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.”
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 the Mega Millions website.
It’s been three months since a Houston-area resident claimed the last jackpot, $810 million, after purchasing the winning ticket at a gas station convenience store in Sugar Land. Before that, a $552 million jackpot was taken in Illinois on June 4 and a $1.128 billion prize was won in New Jersey on March 26.
If the jackpot is won Friday, it would be the fifth largest jackpot in Mega Millions history.
The holiday drawing is part of what the Mega Millions organization is calling the “most unusual jackpot year.” The jackpot has been won only three times so far in 2024 – the fewest wins in any single year since the game began in 2002, the lottery said.
Next year, a shot at the jackpot will be a little more expensive. Starting April 2025, tickets will cost $5 per play, Mega Millions announced this October, along with a spate of “enhancements,” including improved odds, more frequent and larger jackpots and bigger starting jackpots.
It’s the second time the lottery has raised its ticket price since the game started 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 p.m. on Tuesdays and Fridays in Atlanta, Georgia. Tickets cost $2, and the chances of winning the jackpot are approximately 1 in 302.5 million.
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CNN’s Artemis Moshtaghian contributed to this report.
