Mega Millions jackpot soars to $630 million after no top winner on Tuesday
ATLANTA - Feeling lucky? The Mega Millions jackpot has soared past an estimated $600 million for just the fifth time in history.
After no one matched all six numbers during Tuesday night’s drawing, the Mega Millions prize reached a staggering $630 million with a $359.7 million cash option.
If won at that level, it would be the fifth largest prize ever offered in the game, and the largest since $1.050 billion was won in Michigan in January 2021, lottery officials said. The record Mega Millions jackpot is $1.537 billion, won in South Carolina in October 2018.
The next drawing is Friday, July 22 at 11 p.m. ET.
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Tuesday night’s numbers, which were 2, 31, 32, 37, and 70, plus the gold Mega Ball 25, did bring some second and third prize winners. Four tickets sold in Arizona, California, New Hampshire, and North Carolina matched the five white balls to win the Mega Millions second prize of $1 million.
Fifty-two tickets matched four white balls plus the Mega Ball to win the game’s third prize of $10,000 for each winner. Officials said 11 of those tickets were actually worth $30,000 each because they also included the optional Megaplier — a $1 extra purchase available in most states — which was 3X on Tuesday night.
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How to play Mega Millions and odds of winning the jackpot
Mega Millions drawings are held Tuesday and Friday at 11 p.m. ET. Five white balls are drawn from a set of balls numbered 1 through 70, and one gold Mega Ball is drawn from a set of balls numbered 1 through 25. Players win if the numbers on one row of a ticket match the numbers of the balls drawn on that date.
Mega Millions tickets cost $2 per play. Players win the jackpot by matching all six numbers in a drawing. If no one wins the jackpot, the money is added to the jackpot for the next drawing.
FILE IMAGE - Mega Millions lottery tickets are sold at a 7-Eleven store in the Loop on January 22, 2021, in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo Illustration by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
For those lucky enough to become a Mega Millions jackpot winner, they get the choice of a cash option or an annual payout. The annuity option means getting an initial payment followed by 29 annual payments, and each payment is 5% larger than the previous one. For those that select the cash option, they receive a one-time, lump-sum payment that is equal to all the cash in the Mega Millions jackpot prize pool after taxes.
The odds of winning the Mega Millions jackpot prize is roughly 1 in 302,575,350, lottery officials said. But a player’s overall chance of winning any prize is 1 in 24.
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This story was reported from Cincinnati.