Ticket sold in California has won the estimated $1.22 billion Mega Millions jackpot
By Dawn Sawyer and Dalia Faheid, CNN
(CNN) — One Mega Millions ticket sold in Northern California has won Friday’s estimated $1.22 billion jackpot – believed to be the fifth-largest prize in the history of the game, the lottery says.
The ticket – the first to win the jackpot in over 100 days – matched all six winning numbers: 3, 7, 37, 49, 55 and Mega Ball 6.
Friday’s Mega Millions jackpot amounts to $549.7 million in cash. The prize surged since its last drawing on Christmas Eve, when no winner took home the estimated $1 billion jackpot. Friday’s grand prize was previously estimated at $1.15 billion but grew ahead of the highly-anticipated drawing.
The winning ticket was sold at Sunshine Food & Gas in Cottonwood, Shasta County, according to the California State Lottery.
It’s only the fourth Mega Millions jackpot won in 2024 and just the seventh time in the game’s history that the jackpot has soared past $1 billion.
The six others were awarded in South Carolina in 2018, Michigan in 2021, Illinois in 2022, Maine and Florida in 2023 and New Jersey in March. The Florida prize is the game’s record jackpot at $1.602 billion.
Five other tickets sold in Arizona, California, Texas and Missouri won $1 million each in Friday’s drawing by matching the first five numbers, the lottery said.
“Congratulations to our $1.22 billion jackpot winner from California,” Joshua Johnston, lead director for the Mega Millions Consortium, said in a news release. “What an amazing present this holiday season! At an incredibly special time of year, this is both an incredibly special moment for our winner, and for all the great organizations and causes that benefit from lottery ticket sales around the country.”
With only one more drawing this year, odds are that the year will end with the fewest jackpots won in any single year since the game started in 2002, according to the lottery. Only three other people have won this year, down from ten jackpots awarded in 2023.
On September 10, a Houston-area resident claimed the last jackpot, $810 million, after purchasing the winning ticket at a gas station convenience store in Sugar Land. Before that, a $552 million jackpot was taken in Illinois on June 4 and a $1.128 billion prize was won in New Jersey on March 26.
The jackpot for the New Year’s Eve drawing on Tuesday resets to the starting value of $20 million. There has never been a Mega Millions jackpot win on New Year’s Eve, according to the lottery.
Chances of winning the lottery are miniscule, experts say
Since Mega Millions began, there have been 217 jackpots won by 244 individual tickets.
The chances of winning any prize in the lottery game are 1 in 24, according to the Mega Millions website, but the odds of winning a jackpot are 1 in 302.5 million.
Concerns have been raised by researchers that the chances of winning the Mega Millions are not only minuscule, but that state lotteries also siphon funds from impoverished communities under the guise of a chance to acquire wealth.
A study by the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism found that in 2022, stores selling lottery tickets were disproportionately located in the impoverished communities of every state, with proceeds going to far away colleges and wealthy school districts, rather than their community.
According to the company’s press release, half of the proceeds from each lottery ticket remain in the state where the ticket was sold to support “good causes and retailer commissions.”
In 2022, the Howard Center study found that ticket sales had grown from $47 billion to $82 billion, generating more revenue than corporate income taxes in ten states.
Tickets are priced at $2, with players in most jurisdictions given the option to pay an additional dollar to multiply their non-jackpot prizes. The company announced in October that the price will more than double in April 2025, as they promise bigger prizes in return. Each ticket will be $5.
Winning numbers for the jackpot are announced every Tuesday and Friday at 11:00 p.m. ET on the Mega Millions website.
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