No Mega Millions ticket on Friday night matched the six drawn numbers. It marked the 30th consecutive drawing without a jackpot winner.

For only the sixth time in Mega Millions’ 22-year history, the estimated annuitized jackpot for the game’s next drawing on Tuesday, March 26, is upwards of $1 billion. Lottery officials with the Mega Millions Consortium, which conducts the drawings at 11 pm ET on Tuesdays and Fridays at the WSB-TV studios in Atlanta, are forecasting Tuesday’s jackpot to be around $1.1 billion.

Lottery fever continues to spread throughout the country,” said Georgia Lottery President and CEO Gretchen Corbin, who is the lead director of the Mega Millions Consortium. The Georgia Lottery oversees each Mega Millions draw.

The $1.1 billion jackpot ranks fifth all-time among Mega Millions jackpots. The richest came last August when a player in Florida won a $1.602 billion jackpot.

Top Mega Millions Jackpots — Winner

1. $1.602B — August 2023 — Florida
2. $1.537B — October 2018 — South Carolina
3. $1.348B — January 2023 — Maine
4. $1.337B — July 2022 — Illinois
5. $1.100B — March 2024 — ?

Lottery Drought

The Mega Millions jackpot hasn’t been hit since Dec. 8 when two tickets sold in California split a $395 million prize. Powerball players have been equally unlucky in winning the jackpot.   

Powerball is drawn three times a week and its jackpot has slightly better odds at one in 292.2 million. Hitting the Mega Millions top prize is one in 302.5 million.

Powerball will be drawn tonight at 10:59 pm ET from the Florida Lottery draw studio in Tallahassee. Saturday’s drawing will be the 35th drawing in the jackpot run.

At $750 million, tonight’s jackpot offering is the ninth-largest in the game’s 31-year history.

Top Powerball Jackpots — Winner(s)

1. $2.04B — November 2022 — California
2. $1.765B — October 2023 — California
3. $1.586B — January 2016 — California, Florida, Tennessee
4. $1.08B — July 2023 — California
5. $842.4M — January 2024 — Michigan
6. $768.4M — March 2019 — Wisconsin
7. $758.7M — August 2017 — Massachusetts
8. $754.6M — February 2023 — Washington
9. $750M — March 2024 — ?

Play Responsibly

Lottery officials say massive jackpots increase interest and media coverage, which results in higher ticket sales and delivers richer benefits for participating lotteries. Mega Millions and Powerball reps, however, encourage the public to play responsibly.  

Large jackpots provide entertainment and winnings for our players nationwide while contributing to the beneficiary programs funded by each lottery. We appreciate our players and dedicated retailers, and we encourage everyone to play responsibly,” Corbin said.

Players should also be on the lookout for scams, as heightened jackpots bring out swindlers who use an array of deceitful tactics to gain personal information.

Mega Millions said earlier this month that lotteries never require a person to supply their banking account information before receiving their prize. Lotteries also do not reach out to winners via social media or send emails saying a winner must first pay taxes on their financial windfall before receiving the payout.

The post ‘Lottery Fever’ Swells Mega Millions Jackpot to $1.1B, Powerball to $750M appeared first on Casino.org.

Rephrased by The Mystic Gambler

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The winners of the $1.765 billion Powerball jackpot hit last October in California have come forward to claim the prize.

A Powerball ticket sold in Frazier Park, California, for the Wednesday, Oct. 11, 2023, drawing managed to match the five white numbers and the red Powerball. That allows them to claim the second-richest lottery prize in US history. The lucky play was purchased at the Midway Market in Kern County, a family-owned business for 30 years that was awarded a $1 million bonus commission for selling the winning ticket.

Frazier Park is a small mountain town about 50 miles north of Los Angeles.

Struyck said he represented a group of winners who purchase Powerball tickets together, with an agreement to share in any winnings.

The California Lottery release did not specify how many others are involved in the group. It also did not disclose whether the group chose the one-time cash option of approximately $774.1 million or the full value of the annuity paid out over 30 years. Both amounts are before a federal tax rate of 37%. California doesn’t further tax lottery winnings.  

Hopes and Dreams

Struyck and his cohorts won the Powerball jackpot after the interstate lottery game went 35 draws without a single ticket matching the six drawn numbers. The odds of doing so are one in 292.2 million.

California Lottery officials say the run generated almost $120 million in funding for public schools, which is where the state allocates its lottery revenue. The cashing in of the jackpot ticket, the lottery release added, provides “hope” for the millions of lottery players across the country that they could be next.

Announcing big wins like this gives all of our players the chance to hope and dream that they could be next,” said California Lottery Director Harjinder K. Shergill Chima. “But it also gives us an opportunity to shine the spotlight on our terrific mission, which is to generate additional, supplemental funding for public education in California.”

Chima said that while most Powerball players will never win the jackpot, California students win every day because of the lottery.

As for Struyck, his neighbors say the win “couldn’t have happened to a better guy.” Struyck has for years lived in a small home measuring less than 1,200 square feet.

“He’s a family man, loves to spend time with his grandkids,” neighbor Kevin Woten told the Daily Mail. “He’s a really kind person and always seems happy. I imagine he’s got a lot of ideas of what he wants to do with the money.”

Struyck is originally from Hawaii. Woten said he talked in length with Struyck after the devastating Maui wildfires but doesn’t remember Struyck saying he has family there.

Jackpots Growing

The next major lottery winner in the US is imminent, as the Powerball and Mega Millions jackpots are growing to nearly unprecedented highs.

Monday night’s Powerball jackpot has an estimated value of $645 million, with the cash option at $307.3 million. Mega Millions has climbed to $875 million, with the cash at $413.5 million, for the game’s drawing on Tuesday night.

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Rephrased by The Mystic Gambler

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Mega Millions is played in 45 states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Along with Powerball, Mega Millions is the most popular lottery product in the country. But that leaves the game prone to scammers seeking to dupe players into divulging confidential information. [Read more…] about Mega Millions Jackpot Expands to $792M As Scammer Prepare To Attack