Mega Millions jackpot to top $1 billion for Friday's drawing

Melissa Hernandez
·2 min read
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A customer fills out a Mega Millions lottery ticket at a convenience store Thursday, July 21, 2022, in Northbrook, Ill. Lottery officials have raised the Mega Millions grand prize to $660 million Thursday, July 21, 2022, giving players a shot at the nation's ninth largest jackpot. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)
A customer fills out a Mega Millions lottery ticket in Northbrook, Ill. (Nam Y. Huh / Associated Press)

No winning ticket was sold for Tuesday’s $830-million jackpot in the Mega Millions lottery, pushing the top prize for Friday’s drawing to an estimated $1.02 billion.

Tuesday’s pot, already the game’s third-largest, rose by $20 million in the hours leading up to the draw. The winning numbers selected were 7, 29, 60, 63, 66 and the Mega number 15. One ticket sold in California matching five numbers was worth $2.9 million.

The lump sum payout value of Friday’s jackpot now stands at $602.5 million.

Tickets for the Mega Millions drawing are sold for $2 each, and players can add the “Megaplier,” which increases non-jackpot prices by several tiers, for $1 more.

So, what are the odds that a player scores the jackpot? Well, according to Mega Millions, it’s about a 1 in 303 million chance.

So far in 2022, four Mega Millions jackpots have been won, in California, New York, Minnesota and Tennessee. The highest jackpot so far was $426 million, won by Kristen Wellenstein with a ticket purchased in Woodland Hills on Jan. 28.

The jackpot has been rolling over since April, with no one winning the top prize.

Some are trying everything they can to increase their odds of winning, including Raising Cane’s founder and Chief Executive Todd Graves, who shared Monday on Twitter that he’s purchasing 50,000 Mega Millions tickets — one for each employee of the fast-food chain.

“Buying 50,000 lottery tickets is harder than you think!” Graves tweeted. “Hoping to share the winning jackpot with our 50,000 @RaisingCanes Crew.”

According to the North American Assn. of State and Provincial Lotteries, Americans spent more than $106 billion on lottery products (such as lottery tickets, scratch-offs, etc.) in 2021.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.