Friday night’s Mega Millions drawing could reveal a winning ticket for the lottery game’s fifth largest jackpot: $1.22 billion.
The drawing will be held at 11 p.m. ET.
The jackpot has been building since its clock was reset on Sept. 13 after someone in Texas took a $810 million jackpot, Mega Millions officials said. No ticket matched all six numbers revealed in the latest drawing on Christmas Eve.
“We know that many people will likely receive tickets to Friday’s drawing as holiday gifts, and what a gift that would turn out to be if you ended up with a ticket worth a $1.15 billion jackpot,” Joshua Johnston, lead director for the Mega Millions Consortium, said in a statement Wednesday.
Since then, players attracted to that billion-dollar-plus number have been purchasing tickets, contributing to a jackpot growth spurt as the 10 p.m. ET Friday purchasing deadline nears.
Residents of eight states can take home the maximum amount from a jackpot win because their state governments don’t tax lottery winnings. Those states are California, Florida, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, and Wyoming.
A win Friday night would surpass the current fifth-largest jackpot of $1.128 billion, which was claimed Monday, months after the March 26 drawing.
That winning ticket was purchased at a ShopRite in Neptune Township, New Jersey, Mega Millions officials said. New Jersey winners have a year to make such a claim.
“It is common for large jackpot winners to take their time to file a claim,” Mega Millions officials said in the statement.
The winner, who chose protection under New Jersey law to remain anonymous, opted for the prize’s cash value, estimated at $537.5 million before state and federal taxes, Mega Millions officials said.
The federal tax on such an amount is likely to be 37%; New Jersey would tax it at 8%.
The Mega Millions jackpot found a winner three times in 2024 so far. It’s a number officials said would amount to the fewest jackpot wins in a year since the seven-state Big Game became Mega Millions in 2002.
Mega Millions, played in 45 states, Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands, produced 10 jackpots in 2023, the most since the game underwent major changes in 2013, officials said in a statement on Monday.
A player from Florida claimed the largest Mega Millions jackpot, $1.602 billion, in August 2023. As large as that amount is, however, it could not surpass fellow multi-state lottery game Powerball’s most valuable jackpot, $2.040 billion, recorded in November 2022.
Michelle Acevedo and Alex Lo contributed.
