RELEASE DATE: 12/21/2024
There’s extra magic in the air this holiday season as the Mega Millions® jackpot has grown to almost a billion dollars! A massive prize currently estimated at $944 million ($429.4 million cash) is on tap for the next drawing on Tuesday, December 24. The jackpot rolled again after no ticket matched all six numbers drawn Friday night – the white balls 2, 20, 51, 56 and 67, plus the gold Mega Ball 19. If won at that level, it would be the largest prize ever won in December and the seventh largest in Mega Millions history!
Thirteen Mega Millions jackpots have been won during December since the game began in 2002, but only once has it been won on Christmas Eve. That was in the game’s very first year, yet the $68 million prize won in New York on December 24, 2002, eventually went unclaimed. In a multi-state game like Mega Millions, unclaimed jackpots revert to the participating states based on their contribution to sales. The funds are then distributed as defined by the lottery legislation in each jurisdiction. For example, the money may go back to players for extra prizes or it may revert to lottery beneficiaries (such as education or scholarships).
In the December 20 drawing, there were a total of 2,068,988 winning tickets across all non-jackpot prize levels. Five tickets matched the five white balls for the game’s $1 million second-tier prize. Two were sold in Indiana, with one each in Arkansas, Illinois and Pennsylvania.
Around the country, 48 tickets matched four white balls plus the Mega Ball to win the third-tier prize. Eleven of those are worth $20,000 each because they included the optional Megaplier (available in most states with an extra $1 purchase), which was 2X Friday night; the other 37 take home the standard $10,000 each.
While the jackpot has been rolling since it was last won at $810 million in Texas on September 10, there have been more than 21.4 million winning tickets sold in the 29 drawings since then. These include 56 second-tier prizes of $1 million or more, won in 24 different jurisdictions from coast to coast: Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia and Wisconsin.
