- Mega Millions will be played on Halloween for just the seventh time
- The jackpot for the Friday drawing is an estimated $754 million
- The cash option is $352.8 million
On Friday, millions of children will go door to door trick or treating. Later that night, many millions of adults will anxiously await the Mega Millions outcome.
The Halloween drawing for Mega Millions, officials with the Mega Millions Consortium say, will come with an estimated $754 million grand prize. The one-time cash option is projected at $352.8 million.
It’s no trick! By far the largest Mega Millions jackpot ever offered on Halloween is up for grabs on Friday, October 31,” the lottery game said in a release.
Mega Millions, drawn twice a week on Tuesdays and Fridays at 11 pm Eastern Time from the Georgia Lottery Studios in Atlanta, has been drawn on Halloween six times in Mega Millions history. The jackpot “ghosted” players in all six drawings.
The Mega Millions jackpot has been rolling over since it was last won on June 27. A single ticket sold in Virginia claimed the $348 million jackpot and chose the cash option of $155.6 million. After federal and state taxes, the net payout came to approximately $89 million.
The odds of hitting the Mega Millions jackpot are 1 in 290.47 million.
Tuesday Results
Eight tickets came close to winning the Mega Millions jackpot during Tuesday night’s drawing.
Those eight plays matched four of the five white balls, plus the gold Mega Ball, to win anywhere from $20K to $40K. Three tickets had the multiplier land on 2x, three hit 3x, and two hit 4x. The plays were sold in Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Texas.
No ticket matched all five white balls of 2, 19, 33, 53, and 61. The Mega Ball was 14.
There were 502,089 winning tickets across all prize levels. The bulk of the wins, 326,536, matched the gold Mega Ball to win anywhere from $10 to $50.
The multiplier, formerly known as the optional $1 add-on Megaplier, became built-in when Mega Millions overhauled its gameplay earlier this year. The changes included raising the price of a basic play from $2 to $5. But now all tickets include the multiplier, and that’s eliminated break-even outcomes.
Each ticket’s multiplier stands to double, triple, quadruple, quintuple, or decuple all nonjackpot winning prizes. The odds of a ticket hitting 10x are just one in 32. The 2x outcome is about one in two.
Record TerritoryÂ
Friday’s Mega Millions jackpot of $754 million ranks ninth all-time on the richest Mega Millions jackpot list. The game’s biggest win ever came in August 2023 when a ticket sold in Florida won a $1.6 billion annuitized prize.
The rolling jackpot has a way to go to reach the top 10 lottery jackpots in US history, as the 10th entry currently stands at $1.269 billion.
Powerball and Mega Millions each account for five jackpots on the top 10 list.
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