The Mega Millions lottery jackpot hit a record-high for the month of December after no winners were selected in their Christmas Eve drawing.
The Mega Millions jackpot is now around $1.15 billion ($516.1 million in cash), the highest-ever amount offered in December. The next drawing is on Friday.
This week marks only the seventh time in history the jackpot has soared past $1 billion. If a winner is drawn this week, they’ll win the fifth-largest jackpot in Mega Millions history, according to a statement from the organization.
“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.
“I can’t think of a better way to celebrate the holidays – whether Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, the Winter Solstice, or any other way people choose to celebrate the season – than by helping fulfill the dreams that come with a prize like this and prizes that will be won at all levels of the game,” he added.
Christmas Eve wasn’t entirely without winners, however. The organization said there were 4,292,338 winning tickets across all non-jackpot prize levels. Four tickets — sold in California, Missouri, Pennsylvania and Wyoming — won the second-tier prize.
The overall odds of winning any Mega Millions prize are 1 in 24, while the odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 302,575,350, the organization said.
A lottery mystery was also solved this week. This year’s first jackpot winner struck big with a $1.128 billion prize in New Jersey with a ticket purchased in March – however, they didn’t claim the money until this week, according to a statement from the state’s lottery.
The winner, who will receive the prize’s cash value of $537.5 million before taxes, has chosen to stay anonymous.
That prize currently holds the title of fifth-highest jackpot in the lottery’s history. The largest jackpot of $1.602 billion was won by a Florida player last summer.
Mega Millions has labeled 2024 the “most unusual jackpot year.” Only three players have won the jackpot this year, putting 2024 on track to be the first year there have been fewer than five jackpot winners.
