Forty-five states plus Washington, D.C., participate in the Mega Millions drawings. Find out which state has hit the jackpot the most and what numbers seem to come up most often.
Want to be a billionaire?
Mega Millions announced its upcoming jackpot on Tuesday will be an estimated $1.1 billion after no one won the big prize Friday night.
The winning numbers for Friday night's jackpot, which had a jackpot of $977 million, were 3, 8, 31, 35, 44 and a MegaBall of 16. The Megaplier is 3x.
Tuesday's upcoming jackpot will be the eighth-highest lottery jackpot ever, surpassing the $1.08 billion Powerball jackpot won in Los Angeles in July of last year.
Get top local stories in Philly delivered to you every morning. Sign up for NBC Philadelphia's News Headlines newsletter.
The $1.1 billion represents three months of no one winning the Mega Millions grand prize. The jackpot also comes with a lump-sum cash option estimated to be at $525.8 million.
Mega Millions offers jackpot winners the option of accepting a one-time cash payment, or the full $1.1 billion to paid out with 30 payments over 29 years. Most people choose the cash option.
The largest Mega Millions jackpot ever, worth $1.602 billion, was sold on Aug. 8, 2023, in Florida.
U.S. & World
Stories that affect your life across the U.S. and around the world.
Lottery jackpots grow so large because the odds of winning are so small. For Mega Millions, players have a 1 in 302.6 million chance of taking home the top prize.
This is just the sixth time in the nearly 22-year history of the Mega Millions game that the jackpot has ever exceeded $1 billion.
And, lottery winnings do not come without taxes.
There's a mandatory 24% federal withholding for winnings above $5,000 that goes straight to the IRS. Some states tax lottery winnings as well, but states like California, Florida and Texas do not, at least initially as income.
