With no big winners so far this year, the Mega Millions jackpot soared past the $1 billion mark ahead of Tuesday’s drawing.
Not a single lotto participant nabbed a ticket with all six numbers pulled Friday night: 3, 8, 31, 35, 44 and Mega Ball 16. It marked the 30th consecutive drawing without a big winner, stretching all the way back to Dec. 8, when a prize of $394 million was claimed by a pair of players in California.
Friday’s drawing did however yield “2,564,114 winning tickets across all prize tiers,” five of which matched five winning numbers for a $1 million prize, Mega Millions said. Another player in Virginia also snagged a $3 million pot by activating the Megaplier.
Should someone successfully match all six numbers pulled Tuesday, they’ll claim a $1.1 billion jackpot, which comes with a lump-sum cash option estimated to be worth $525.8 million. It would be the fifth largest prize in the history of the game, according to the lottery.
The biggest Mega Millions pot ever, a whopping $1.602 billion, was won in August of last year. The winning ticket was purchased in Neptune, Fla.
“Mega Millions is the only lottery game that has now ventured into billion-dollar territory six times,” the lottery said. “To date, five jackpots exceeding $1 billion have been awarded — all in different states. South Carolina was the first in 2018, followed by Michigan in 2021, Illinois in 2022, Maine in early 2023 and Florida last August.”
The odds of winning the jackpot is 1 in 302,575,350.
