The Mega Millions jackpot is now the eighth largest in the game’s history with an estimated $843 million at stake in Friday night’s drawing, officials said.
Friday’s 11 p.m. drawing will be the 38th since the jackpot was last won in Virginia on June 27 and is now the longest streak without a jackpot winner since play began in 2002, according to a statement from Mega Millions.
The previous record of 37 drawings was set on Jan. 22, 2021, when a $1.05 million jackpot was won in Michigan, officials said.
“While the jackpot remains elusive, the number of winners and total prizes won continues to grow,” lottery officials said. “Throughout this jackpot to date, there have been nearly 11.7 million winning tickets across all tiers, with total prizes exceeding $274 million thanks to significant improvements to lower-tier prizes after the game changed last April.”
There have also been 256 third-tier winning tickets so far in this race, ranging from $20,000 to $100,000, Mega Millions officials said.
In this Aug. 8, 2023, file photo, lottery tickets for the Mega Millions jackpot are seen at a store in New York.
Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images, FILE
Prior to Virginia’s June 27 jackpot of $348 million, other jackpots awarded this year were in Ohio, with $112 million won on April 18, Illinois, with $349 million won on March 25, and Arizona, where $112 million was won on January 17.
Although no one won the jackpot Tuesday, lottery officials said there is still plenty of money to be won with other prizes.
“In the Nov. 4 drawing alone, there were 606,046 winning tickets across all prize levels, for a total nationwide win of more than $12.2 million,” officials said.
The odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 290,472,336, according to Mega Millions.
Mega Millions is played in 45 states, Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Tickets cost $5 per play and the largest Mega Millions prize ever won was a $1.6 billion prize won on August 8, 2023.
