37°
After no one won the jackpot during the Tuesday, May 18 game, the jackpot shot up to the $515 million mark for the Friday, May 21 game, Mega Millions officials said.
That equals $346.3 million in cash if a winner takes the cash payout option.
The jackpot has been rolling since it was last won in New York on Tuesday, February 16, and in the game's 19-year history there have only been eight jackpots higher than Friday’s estimated bonanza.
The winning numbers for the May 18 game were 3, 5, 56, 61, and 66, plus the gold Mega Ball 4. There were a total of 1,371,494 winning tickets at all prize levels in Tuesday night’s drawing; five matched the five white balls to win the game’s second $1 million prizes, officials said.
For matching four white balls plus the Mega Ball, 34 tickets won $10,000 each; three of those are actually worth $20,000 each because they also included the optional Megaplier.
In this current jackpot run, since February 16 there have been more than 17.8 million winning tickets at all prize levels, including 31 worth $1 million or more.
Two Mega Millions jackpots have been won to date in 2021. Most recently, $96 million was won by a New York couple on Tuesday, February 16.
On Friday, January 22, a whopping $1.05 billion prize went to a group of players in Michigan. That was the second-largest jackpot in the history of the game, surpassed only by the massive $1.537 billion prize won in October 2018.
The top Mega Millions jackpots to date include:
- $1.537 billion 10/23/2018
- $1.050 billion 1/22/2021
- $656 million 3/30/2012
- $648 million 12/17/2013
- $543 million 7/24/2018
- $536 million 7/8/2016
- $533 million 3/30/2018
- $522 million 6/7/2019
- $451 million 1/5/2018
The drawing is held at 11 p.m. each Tuesday and Friday.
Click here to follow Daily Voice Hartford and receive free news updates.
