Mega Millions jackpot grows to $1.6B

The Mega Millions lottery's streak of jackpot rollovers continued Friday, pushing the next drawing toward a record $1.6 billion.

All eyes were on the latest drawing Friday night, when the jackpot was at an already mind-boggling $1 billion. However, with no ticket matching all six numbers drawn -- 15, 23, 53, 65, 70 and Mega Ball 7 -- the grand prize now swells to $1.6 billion.

The next drawing is at 10 p.m. Tuesday.

"Mega Millions has already entered historic territory, but it's truly astounding to think that now the jackpot has reached an all-time world record," Gordon Medenica, lead director of the Mega Millions Group and director of Maryland Lottery and Gaming, said in a statement. "It's hard to overstate how exciting this is -- but now it's really getting fun."

Medenica told The Washington Post that about 57 percent of the possible number combinations were purchased in advance of Friday's drawing and that it was an "extremely pleasant surprise" there was no winner.

"That means the odds were [a winning ticket] would have gotten picked but it didn't," Medenica said. "This is really uncharted territory for all of us."

Based on sales projections, 75 percent of the 302 million possible combinations will be chosen for Tuesday's drawing, said Carole Gentry, spokeswoman for Maryland Lottery and Gaming.

"It's possible that nobody wins again but it's hard to fathom," Gentry said.

What's more, the jackpot is likely to grow even larger before Tuesday, as word of the record-breaking grand prize grows and prompts even people who don't normally play the lottery to buy a ticket, Medenica said.

The estimated cash option for a $1.6 billion jackpot -- should a winner choose to take a one-time lump sum payment instead of annual payouts over 30 years -- is about $905 million, according to Mega Millions officials.

The previous record Mega Millions jackpot was $656 million, claimed in the drawing on Mar. 30, 2012. Winners in Kansas, Illinois and Maryland shared that jackpot.

Though no one won the grand prize outright on Friday, Mega Millions officials said there were 15 tickets sold with numbers that matched all five white balls but not the Mega Ball. Those "second-tier" winning tickets are worth at least $1 million.

The string of enormous Mega Millions jackpots in recent months has been the natural result of officials changing the rules of the game last October to make jackpots pay out less frequently.

The modifications had the intended effect. According to the official list of largest Mega Millions jackpots, three of the six top jackpot amounts have been awarded since the rules were changed last year.

A 2016 Powerball jackpot that was worth $1.58 billion is the current record-holder for largest jackpot in history. Three winning tickets split that Powerball grand prize that year.

Medenica said every so often, a massive jackpot like this will seize the cultural imagination and prompt a run on tickets.

"It was two-and-a-half years ago that Powerball had this kind of a run," Medenica said. "I think when these things are separated by years, as they seem to be, they take on a life of their own. It just becomes what everybody's talking about ... . Everybody goes out and buys their tickets, has their dream."

The Mega Millions jackpot has been growing since July, when a group of 11 California office workers won $543 million.

It costs $2 to play the game. The odds of winning the jackpot are about one in 302 million but, with so many tickets being purchased, the likelihood of rollover becomes increasingly slim.

"I wouldn't be surprised if it gets hit," Gentry said. "I'd be more surprised if it doesn't get hit."

Mega Millions tickets are sold in 44 states as well as Washington, D.C., and the Virgin Islands. Residents in the six states that don't have lotteries [Alabama, Alaska, Hawaii, Mississippi, Nevada and Utah] can buy their tickets often right across the border.

Information for this article was contributed by Amy B Wang of The Washington Post; by Christina Caron of The New York Times; and by Elliot Spagat of The Associated Press.

A Section on 10/21/2018

Upcoming Events