With one Mega Millions jackpot of at least an estimated $1.1 billion in play, emotion was building as Friday’s 11pm EDT draw approached. The cash payout for this grand prize would be $648.2 million.
The prize pool topped $1 billion this week, marking only the third time the jackpot has surpassed that threshold in the game’s two-decade history. The game’s current jackpot is almost as big as record amounts won in 2018 and 2021. In those years, players whose ticket numbers matched the numbers drawn by Mega Millions administrators received approximately $1.05 billion and $1.5 billion.
The current jackpot started in April. A few people came so close to win it all during the last draw on Tuesday.
Mega Millions said nine people nearly won the jackpot, which was $830 million at the time, but fell slightly short as their tickets contained the first five winning numbers without the sixth and final Mega number dance Another 156 people had bought tickets with the correct Mega Ball number, but only four of the first five, according to the lottery.
One winner from the first group and three dozen from the second bought their tickets using the game’s Megaplier feature, which guarantees a bigger prize for an added cost per ticket, which increased their respective prizes to $3 million from 1 million dollars and $30,000 from $10,000. After the drawing, Mega Millions reported an “unprecedented” increase in traffic to its website, where people can enter for a chance to win during the next one. The lottery said the overload of visitors crashed the site on Tuesday night.
“We look forward to the growing jackpot,” Pat McDonald, the lead director of the Mega Millions Consortium and the director of the Ohio Lottery, said in a statement released ahead of Friday’s $1 billion drawing. “To see the jackpot grow over a period of months and hit the billion dollar mark is truly impressive. We encourage customers to stay balanced and enjoy the ride. Someone will win.”
The odds of hitting this year’s Mega Millions payout are slim, and the lottery recently issued a warning to players who urged them to be aware of scammers seeking to fraudulently collect cash by posing as official Mega Millions representatives who provide news of a fake win by phone, text or email and ask target rates in return.
But for people who legitimately hold winning tickets, protection against scams is one reason some financial advisers have suggested they remain anonymous when claiming their winnings. Doing so is only possible in a handful of US states, as most require lottery participants to publicly reveal their identity after winning. There are additional laws in some places that allow lottery winners to claim their prizes through legal entities, such as trusts, that hold assets, but most states require that anyone with a winning Mega Millions ticket disclose your personal information when signing the check.
Along with possible options for anonymity when claiming prizes, players who win the Mega Millions jackpot can choose whether to collect the money in installments or all at once. Lottery participants who choose to pay will receive this sum in annual payments over about 30 years, so most choose the immediate cash option.
The decision likely depends on a number of personal factors for each winner, including their age, current financial situation and how the beneficiaries could raise their money, if needed. A significant portion of the winnings will go to federal taxes either way, but individual state laws about lottery prizes and how, if at all, they are taxed could also make a type of prize money look more favorable.
