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At some point, whether it’s Friday night or down the road, someone’s going to win the Mega Millions jackpot.
It probably just will not be you.
With the odds on players matching all six figures needed to reach the womb, the top prize of the lottery is estimated to have reached $ 970 million for Friday night’s draw. The cash option – which most winners choose over an annuity – is $ 716.3 million (pre-tax). The jackpot is also the third largest in American lottery history.
Friday night’s draw comes just days after winning a large sum of money in another lottery: A ticket purchased in Maryland won Powerball’s $ 731.1 million jackpot ($ 546.8 million cash option ), which is the sixth largest prize ever.
“We know players like big jackpots, and when the numbers are that big, it’s becoming a national phenomenon,” said Gordon Medenica, the lottery director and chief executive officer of Mega Millions, in Maryland.
“Everyone wants to dream about what they would do if they won,” Medenica said.
The Mega Millions jackpot has been climbing since mid-September, when someone raised $ 120 million ($ 95.4 million in cash) and restored the highest price to $ 20 million. According to lottery officials, there are 37 weeks of no one matching all six figures in twice a week.
Each Mega Millions ticket has an approximately 1 to 302 million chance of winning the jackpot. For Powerball, it’s slightly better: 1 in 292 million.
Even if you buy multiple tickets, you will not move the needle much. To give you even a 50-50 chance of winning the Mega Millions jackpot – that is, the same chance of flipping a coin once – you need to buy more than 151 million different number combinations. But even then, you would not be able to guarantee that you are the only winner.
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The largest jackpot in American history – a Powerball prize of $ 1.59 billion in 2016 – was split in three ways.
For the draw on Friday night, lottery officials estimate that 40% of all possible number combinations will be played.
You can of course win in the game without hitting the jackpot. The last Mega Millions draw, held on Tuesday night, yielded nearly 5.2 million winning tickets, according to lottery data. This included two winners of $ 2 million each, 11 winners of $ 1 million each and 139 winners who earned at least $ 10,000.
After the Mega Millions jackpot is won, it is restored $ 20 million.