Player in NJ wins $1.13B Mega Millions jackpot
We have a winner!
A player in New Jersey matched all six numbers in Tuesday night’s Mega Millions drawing, winning a $1.13 billion jackpot – the fifth-largest prize in Mega Millions history, with a $537.5 million cash option.
The jackpot had been steadily growing over the past 31 drawings – ever since two tickets in California shared the $394 million prize in December.
The lucky player in New Jersey who matched the five white balls and the gold Mega Ball in Tuesday’s drawing has not been publicly identified. This is the first time a player in the Garden State has won the Mega Millions jackpot in almost four years, the lottery said, with the last instance occurring in July 2020.
“Congratulations to the New Jersey Lottery for selling a jackpot-winning ticket in Tuesday’s $1.13 billion Mega Millions drawing,” Georgia Lottery President and CEO Gretchen Corbin, lead director of the Mega Millions Consortium, said in a release. “We celebrate our new jackpot winner, as well as all the prizes won and dollars raised for good causes during this exciting jackpot run.”
The winning numbers from the Tuesday drawing were 7, 11, 22, 29 and 38. The Mega Ball was 4, and the Megaplier was 2X.
In addition to the jackpot win in New Jersey, there were also a $2 million Match 5 + Megaplier winner in New York and $1 million Match 5 winners in nine states.
Mega Millions drawings are held every Tuesday and Friday. The numbers are drawn at 11 p.m. EST in Atlanta.
Tickets to Mega Millions cost $2 per play. There are nine total ways to win a prize, from the jackpot to $2.
Players pick five numbers from 1 to 70 and one Mega Ball number from 1 to 25.
You can also choose Easy Pick or Quick Pick to have the terminal randomly pick numbers for you. You win the jackpot by matching all six winning numbers in the drawing.
Players can add the “Megaplier” for $1, which can increase non-grand prize winnings by two, three, four or five. The Megaplier is drawn before the Mega Millions numbers on Tuesday and Friday.
Tickets can be purchased in person at gas stations, convenience stores and grocery stores in 45 states, the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Democrat Marilyn Lands won a contentious special election for a state House seat in deep-red Alabama on Tuesday night. The results could signal the dominant role of abortion and in vitro fertilization in elections across the country in 2024.
Lands, a licensed professional counselor, beat Republican Teddy Powell, a city council member, in the race for a seat in Alabama’s statehouse that was left vacant after former Republican Rep. David Cole pleaded guilty to voter fraud. Lands ran against Cole in 2022 for the 10th District seat, which covers an area around Huntsville, but lost by 7 points.
While her win won’t change the makeup of the heavily Republican Alabama legislature, it does showcase the enormous impact reproductive issues, such as abortion and in vitro fertilization, could have down the ballot this fall.
The election was one of the first tests of how Alabama voters felt about the state court’s February ruling, which threatened access to IVF when it found that frozen embryos were legally considered children. The state’s legislature weighed in on the issue in early March with a law attempting to protect IVF providers and patients from prosecution.
Alabama is also one of several states where a strict abortion ban went into effect after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.
The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, an organization that works to elect Democrats to statehouses, saw the 10th District race as a test of the influence reproductive issues could have on swing voters across the country in 2024.
Lands focused her campaign heavily on protecting abortion and IVF access.
In a TV ad, Lands shared her experience getting an abortion for a “nonviable” pregnancy years ago with an Alabama woman who recently faced a similar