No winner for Mega Millions lottery drawing, jackpot mounts to $1.25 bln

An estimated $1.1 billion jackpot in the multistate Mega Millions lottery draw, one of the richest in its history, found no winners on Tuesday night, boosting the prize for the next draw later this week.

No one held the numbers 8, 24, 30, 45, 61, and the Mega Ball number 12 that were picked earlier in the night, Mega Millions said.

The next drawing for the lottery will take place on Friday, with the estimated jackpot now rising to $1.25 billion.

This was the 30th drawing since the last Mega Millions winner hit the jackpot in April. The winner or winners must match the correct six double-digit numbers on a $2 ticket.

If there is a single winner on Friday, the lucky ticket holder can have the estimated jackpot paid out over 30 years, or receive an estimated $625.3 million lump sum payment.

The odds of winning are minuscule: a buyer of a single Mega Millions lottery ticket has about a 1-in-300 million chance of containing all the correct numbers.

The jackpot is among the highest Mega Millions prizes ever, topped only by a $1.537 billion jackpot that a single ticket holder in South Carolina won in 2018.

But Tuesday’s purse was only about half the size of a $2.04 billion Powerball jackpot won by a single-ticket holder in California in November 2022. That ranks as the largest lottery prize total in US history. — Reuters