Mega Millions Jackpot Jumps Past $500 Million

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May 29, 2024 – For just the second time since last summer, the Mega Millions® jackpot has surpassed the half-billion dollar mark! After no ticket matched all six numbers drawn Tuesday night – the white balls 12, 18, 48, 57 and 62, plus the gold Mega Ball 4 – the jackpot for the next drawing on Friday, May 31, is an estimated $522 million ($241.4 million cash). If won at that level, it would equal the twelfth largest prize in the history of the game. The jackpot has been rolling since it was last won at $1.128 billion in New Jersey on March 26.

As the jackpot grows, so does the number of winning tickets at all prize levels. There were 828,978 winning tickets in the May 28 drawing. Across the country, 12 tickets matched four white balls plus the Mega Ball to win the third-tier prize. Two of those are worth $50,000 each because they included the optional Megaplier (available in most states with an extra $1 purchase), which was 5X Tuesday night. The other 10 third-tier winning tickets take home the standard $10,000 each.

In the two months since the Mega Millions jackpot was last won, there have been a total of more than 12.3 million winning tickets across all non-jackpot prize tiers. These include 31 second-tier prizes of $1 million or more, won in 14 different jurisdictions from coast to coast: Arizona, California, Florida, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee and Texas.

Mega Millions is the only lottery game that has produced six jackpots greater than $1 billion. All were won in different states – South Carolina was the first in 2018, followed by Michigan in 2021, Illinois in 2022, Maine in early 2023, Florida last August and New Jersey in March. The Florida prize on August 8, 2023, is the game’s current record jackpot at $1.602 billion.

Tickets are sold in 45 states, Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Tickets are $2 each; in most jurisdictions, players can add the Megaplier for an additional $1 to multiply their non-jackpot prizes. Half of the proceeds from the sale of each Mega Millions ticket remains in the state where the ticket was sold, where the money supports designated good causes and retailer commissions.

Drawings are conducted at 11 p.m. Eastern Time on Tuesdays and Fridays in Atlanta, Georgia. The overall odds of winning any Mega Millions prize are 1 in 24; the odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 302,575,350.

Source: Mega Millions

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