WEST VIRGINIA (LOOTPRESS) – As winter sets in, the Mega Millions® jackpot is heating up, reaching an estimated $825 million for the drawing on Friday, December 20.
The cash option for the prize is $382.2 million. If won, this would be the largest December jackpot in the game’s history and the seventh-largest overall.
The jackpot has been rolling since it was last won on September 10 in Texas at $810 million. In the 28 drawings since then, nearly 19.4 million tickets have won non-jackpot prizes, including 51 second-tier prizes worth $1 million or more across 21 states.
The most recent drawing on December 17 produced 1,602,721 winning tickets at all prize levels. Five tickets matched five white balls for the second-tier prize.
One North Carolina ticket included the optional Megaplier, boosting its value to $4 million. Other second-tier winners hailed from California, Louisiana, and Oklahoma.
Third-tier prizes of $10,000 were awarded to 55 tickets, with 17 boosted to $40,000 via the Megaplier. California prizes vary due to the state’s pari-mutuel prize structure.
Mega Millions has seen only three jackpots won this year, the fewest in a single year since its 2002 inception. The largest 2023 jackpot, $1.128 billion, was won in New Jersey on March 26 but remains unclaimed.
Mega Millions is the only lottery to have six jackpots surpassing $1 billion, with record-setting prizes won in states including South Carolina, Michigan, Illinois, and Florida.
Tickets are sold in 45 states, Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands for $2 each, with an optional $1 Megaplier to boost non-jackpot winnings.
Drawings are held Tuesdays and Fridays at 11 p.m. ET in Atlanta, Georgia. While the overall odds of winning any prize are 1 in 24, the odds of winning the jackpot stand at 1 in 302.6 million.
