Mega Millions Jackpot Soars to $800 Million for Next Drawing

The hype surrounding the Mega Millions jackpot continues to grow and so does the size of the grand prize. Regretfully, nobody matched the winning white balls 6, 23, 41, 59 and 61, along with the gold Mega ball 25 on Friday, allowing the jackpot to continue climbing.

With the next drawing scheduled for Tuesday, September 10, 2024, the Mega Millions jackpot is estimated at the mind-blowing $800 million. Not unexpectedly, the jackpot has a cash option which would be $401.8 million, a sum that is far from $800 million but still completely life-changing.

If a fortunate player wins the Mega Millions grand prize on Tuesday, they will be collecting the seventh largest jackpot from the game. The six other jackpots that are greater were all more than $1 billion.

The last time a fortunate Mega Millions player won the jackpot was back in June. On June 4, an incredibly lucky lottery player from Illinois beat the 1 in 302.5 million odds, winning the jackpot which was at $552 million at the time. Since then, Mega Millions has held 27 drawings without producing a jackpot winner.

In August last year, a player from Florida won the largest-ever jackpot, a mind-blowing $1.6 billion. The second-largest grand prize from the popular lottery game dropped near the end of October in 2018 when a winner from South Carolina won $1.537 billion. The third-largest jackpot from Mega Millions was won by a player from Maine early last year. At the time, the fortunate winner won $1.348 billion.

Nearly 21 Million Winning Tickets Sold since the Last Jackpot Win

With the jackpot increasing, so does the interest in Mega Millions. While there have been no jackpot wins, Mega Millions has sold 20.7 million winning tickets within its different prize tiers.

Out of that total, 57 tickets won $1 million or more.  Those second-tier prizes went to 25 different states, including Florida, Ohio, California, New York, Michigan, Texas and Pennsylvania, among others.

Mega Millions’ latest drawing on Friday saw nearly 1.7 million winning tickets within the game’s various prize tiers. A total of six players matched five winning numbers from the latest draw.

One fortunate player from Ohio who matched five winning numbers won a $2 million Megaplier prize by paying extra for the game’s Megaplier option. The other five winners, one from Texas, New Hampshire, Illinois, Florida and California, each collected the standard $1 million prize.

Friday’s drawing saw nearly 50 lottery players match four white balls along with the gold Mega ball. Out of that total, 10 players collected a $20,000 Megaplier prize, while 39 others took home the standard $10,000 prize each.