Who wants to be a millionaire?
If you play Mega Millions on Friday, you could win an estimated $940 million. This would be one of the most significant prizes in the game’s 20-year history, lottery officials said.
That’s about $486 million in cash out.
In the January 3 drawing alone, there were 2,904,737 winning tickets, with prizes ranging from just $2 up to $4 million. Six tickets matched the five white balls to win the game’s second-tier prize.
Three, sold in Arizona, Mississippi, and South Dakota, included the optional Megaplier (available in most states with an extra $1 purchase), which was 4X on Tuesday night; they were worth $4 million each.
The other three, sold in Maryland, Texas, and Virginia, won the standard $1 million prize. The $4 million wins in Mississippi and South Dakota are the largest Mega Millions prizes ever won in those states.
After Tuesday’s drawing of the numbers 25, 29, 33, 41, and 44, plus the gold Mega Ball 118, which didn’t produce a jackpot winner for the $785 million, the jackpot grew by $155 million.
Since October 14, a total of 23 drawings have won over 22.7 million tickets, and 47 are worth $1 million. Winners triumphed in 19 states from coast to coast: Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia.
Over five dozen people (68) nationwide had tickets with the winning numbers from four white balls and the Mega Ball, winning the third-level prize. Each ticket was worth $40,000 with Megaplier, the lottery office reported.