US LOTTERY JACKPOT HITS $1.6B
The Mega Millions lottery may see a streak of jackpot rollovers end as it heads toward a world record $1.6-billion draw on Tuesday.
As more tickets sell, chances grow that at least one buyer will pick all six winning numbers. That would stop the streak of 25 rollovers, most recently on Friday night.
“Mega Millions has already entered historic
territory, but it’s truly astounding to think that now the jackpot has reached an all-time world record,” Gordon Medenica, lead director of the Mega Millions Group, said in a statement.
Based on sales projections, 75 percent of the 302 million possible combinations would be chosen for Tuesday’s draw, up from 59.1 percent in Friday’s draw, said Carole Gentry, spokesperson for Maryland Lottery and Gaming.
About 280 million tickets were sold in Friday’s draw, but none matched all the winning numbers of 15, 23, 53, 65, 70 and Megaball 7 that would have paid out an estimated prize of $1 billion. Fifteen tickets matched five numbers, entitling each ticket holder to $1 million.
The $1.6-billion estimated jackpot would be the largest prize in US history. The secondlargest jackpot was a $1.586-billion Powerball draw on Jan. 13, 2016.
A Spanish lottery called El Gordo typically generates a larger purse than Mega Millions, but that money is shared by many different winners and no single prize in El Gordo approaches the size of the latest Mega Millions jackpot.
‘Very, very quickly’
Russ Lopez, spokesperson for the California Lottery, said tickets were going “very, very quickly” on Saturday.
Tonya Jimenez, assistant manager at Beavers Market in Fort Collins, Colorado, said all three registers were going kaching on Saturday, a day after the store sold 220 tickets. Many hopefuls haven’t played before.
“We tell them how to play it,” Jimenez said. “They don’t know what to do. We’re doing a lot of explaining.”
It costs $2 to play the game. A bettor may pick six numbers from two separate pools of numbers—five different numbers from 1 to 70 and one Megaball number from 1 to 25.
The odds of picking all six winning numbers are about 1 in 302 million. But, with so many tickets being purchased for Tuesday’s draw, the likelihood of another rollover becomes increasingly slim.
Gentry said she wouldn’t be surprised if the jackpot got hit. “I’d be more surprised if it doesn’t get hit,” she added.
2 options for winner
If a single bettor hits all six winning numbers, the lucky player may opt for an immediate cash payment of $904 million or receive the $1.6-billion prize over 29 years.
If there are several winning tickets, the jackpot would be divided proportionately, as what happened when the previous Mega Millions record of $656 million was drawn in March 2012 and was shared by winners in Kansas, Illinois and Maryland.
The 24 semiweekly Mega Millions draws have failed to produce a top winner since July 24, when an 11-member office pool in Santa Clara County, California, shared a $543-million jackpot.
Mega Millions tickets are sold in 44 US states, District of Columbia and US Virgin Islands. Several states allow online ticket purchases, but they prohibit out-of-state and foreign purchases.