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The Mega Millions jackpot is wrapping up the holiday season with a jaw-dropping prize estimated at $944 million - with a $429.4 million cash option - for the drawing on Tuesday, Dec. 24, making it the seventh-largest jackpot in the game’s history, just in time to pay off some holiday bills.
No ticket hit the jackpot in Friday night’s drawing, and now, the odds-defying prize could make someone’s holiday dreams come true.
Two of the top 10 largest Mega Millions jackpots ever hit have been reported this year, with Tuesday's drawing possibly representing a third:
- $1.602 billion on Aug., 8, 2023 in Florida;
- $1.537 billion on Oct. 23, 2018 in South Carolina;
- $1.348 billion on Jan. 13, 2023 in Maine;
- $1.337 billion on July, 29, 2022 in Illinois;
- $1.128 billion on March 26, 2024 in New Jersey;
- $1.050 billion on Jan. 22, 2021 in Michigan;
- $944 million (estimated) on Tuesday;
- $810 million on Sept. 10, 2024 in Texas;
- $656 million on March 30, 2012 in Illinois, Kansas, and Maryland;
- $648 million on Dec. 17, 2013 in California and Georgia.
Mega Millions has been a hot ticket as the jackpot continues to roll, with a total of 2,068,988 winning tickets across all non-jackpot prize levels.
Five tickets matched the five white balls for the game’s $1 million second-tier prize - two were sold in Indiana, with one each in Arkansas, Illinois and Pennsylvania.
If won at this level on Tuesday, it would be the biggest jackpot ever awarded in December. It would also be the first Mega Millions jackpot won on Christmas Eve since 2002 - though that prize was a paltry $68 million and ultimately went unclaimed.
The odds of winning the jackpot is 1 in 302,575,350.
According to Lottery officials, "while the jackpot has been rolling since it was last won at $810 million in Texas on September 10, there have been more than 21.4 million winning tickets sold in the 29 drawings since then. These include 56 second-tier prizes of $1 million or more, won in 24 different jurisdictions (across the country.)"
The drawing will be held at 11 p.m. on Tuesday night. If no one claims the Christmas Eve jackpot, it will continue rolling until a post-Christmas drawing on Friday, Dec. 27.
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