No ticket matched all six numbers drawn Friday night – the white balls 11, 30, 45, 52 and 56, plus the gold Mega Ball 20 – so the estimated jackpot rolls to $1.55 billion ($757.2 million cash). Many players looking to become billionaires are newcomers to the game.

 

“It is indeed likely that there will be a new record Mega Millions jackpot,” the lottery said in a statement. “However, we won’t know for sure until we get closer to Tuesday’s drawing; at this level, jackpots are hard to predict with complete accuracy.”

 

While this jackpot run has produced significant revenues for good causes and for the lottery retailers that sell the game, it has also produced tens of millions of winning tickets for players. In the 31 drawings since the last jackpot was won in New York on April 18, there have been more than 36.6 million winning tickets at all non-jackpot prize levels, ranging from $2 up to $5 million. In the August 4 drawing alone, there were 5,331,114 winning tickets at all prize levels. Nine tickets matched the five white balls to win the game’s second-tier prize. Two are worth $2 million each because they included the optional Megaplier (available in most states with an extra $1 purchase), which was 2X for this drawing; they were sold in Michigan and Tennessee.

 

Mega Millions is the only lottery game that has awarded four jackpots exceeding $1 billion – one each in 2018, 2021, 2022 and 2023; one more – probably a new record prize – will soon be added to the mix. 

 

Half of the proceeds from the sale of each Mega Millions ticket remains in the state where the ticket was sold, where the money supports designated good causes and retailer commissions.

 

“It’s exciting to watch Mega Millions grow,” said Georgia Lottery President and CEO Gretchen Corbin, lead director of the Mega Millions Consortium.