$750M: Mega Millions jackpot rises to its 2nd highest ever; Powerball drawing Wednesday
ATLANTA - Nobody overcame the 302,575,350 to one odds to win the Mega Millions Jackpot on Tuesday, which pushed the jackpot closer to the record set in 2018.
The Mega Millions top prize sits at an estimated $750 million, roughly half of the record $1.537 billion jackpot won in October 2018.
Mega Millions’ next drawing will be held Friday at 11 p.m. ET in Atlanta. But lottery players won’t have to wait that long to win major cash.
The Powerball will draw numbers for its $550 million prize Wednesday at 11 p.m. ET, the ninth highest in the game’s history.
In order to win either jackpot, players will have to buy tickets with numbers matching the numbers on six ping pong balls.
In the Mega Millions game, the five white balls can be any number between one and 70. The gold Mega Ball is numbered 1-25.
Powerball players need only to match the five white balls, numbered 1-69, and the red Powerball, numbered 1-26.
Powerball and Mega Millions lottery tickets are displayed on Jan. 3, 2018, in San Anselmo, California. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
A jackpot winner gets to pick from a single cash payment or an annuity.
Taking the cash will get you a one-time lump sum payment equal to the value of the prize pool. That’s equal to $411.4 million for Wednesday night’s drawing.
Opting for the annuity will net you the entire value of the jackpot broken down to smaller payments over 30 years. Each payment will increase by 5% to combat inflation.
In either case, taxes will apply.
Once a jackpot-winning ticket has been sold, the prize pool will reset to $20 million before the next drawing. It will continue to climb each drawing until another winning ticket has been sold.
Even if you don’t win the grand prize, both games offer smaller prizes for matching fewer numbers.
In Tuesday night’s drawing, nine people matched numbers on the five white balls, winning $1 million each. One of them played the optional Megaplier, doubling their winnings to $2 million.
Matching four numbers plus the Mega Ball will net you $10,000, as it did for 116 people Tuesday.
Mega Millions Drawings are held every Tuesday and Friday at 11 p.m. ET in Atlanta. Identically, Powerball drawings take place in Atlanta at 11 p.m. every Wednesday and Saturday.
This story was reported from Atlanta.