Mega Millions lottery jackpot nears $1B ahead of Friday drawing
The Mega Millions lottery jackspot is approaching $1 billion ahead of Friday’s drawing
COLUMBIA, Mo. — The Mega Millions lottery jackpot is approaching $1 billion ahead of Friday's drawing, driving first-time buyers and other hopefuls to stock up on tickets.
Regeina Whitsitt, a lottery clerk for RED X Grocery Store in the Missouri city of Riverside near the border of Kansas, said she’s sold tickets to a number of new players trying to win the $910 million jackpot. Customers are buying $60 to $100 worth of tickets, Whitsitt said.
The $910 million prize is one of the largest in U.S. lottery history and follows a $1.08 billion Powerball prize won by a player July 19 in Los Angeles. California lottery officials haven’t announced a winner for that jackpot, the sixth-largest in U.S. history.
The largest U.S. jackpot was a $2.04 billion Powerball prize won in November 2022.
The current Mega Millions jackpot is shaping up to be the fifth highest in Mega Millions history, with a one-time cash prize estimated at $464 million. The last winner took home $20 million in April. Since then, there have been 28 consecutive drawings without a jackpot winner.
The highest Mega Millions jackpot, won in 2018, was more than $1.5 billion.
WHAT ARE THE CHANCES OF WINNING?
The odds of winning the Mega Millions jackpot are 1 in 302,575,350. Your odds of winning are only slightly improved by buying more than one ticket. And the odds are so long that it’s certainly not worth spending money you’ll miss for more tickets, experts warn. If buying one ticket gives you a 1 in 302,575,350 of winning the jackpot, spending $10 for five tickets improves your chances to only 5 in 303 million. The same is true is you spend $100. So you could spend a lot of
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