MegaMillions Lottery Jackpot At $790 million

With no winner Friday night, the megamillions lottery jackpot rises to an estimated $790 million. The next drawing will be Tuesday, July 26.

Only three times before has a lottery jackpot been higher. Two were Mega Millions jackpots. $1.537 billion won in South Carolina on October 23, 2018, and $1.050 billion won in Michigan on January 22, 2021. The current world record lottery prize is a $1.586 billion Powerball jackpot won on January 13, 2016.

Though no one won the jackpot, it can not be said no one won while playing the game. A total of 3,428,412 winning tickets at all prize levels were sold for Friday’s drawing. Four tickets matched the five white balls to win the game’s second prize. Three of them are worth $3 million each because they included the optional Megaplier (a $1 extra purchase available in most states), which was 3X Friday night; they were sold in Delaware, New Jersey and New York. The remaining Match 5 winning ticket, worth $1 million, was sold in Virginia. The $3 million Delaware ticket represents the largest Mega Millions prize ever won in that state.

In the 28 drawings since the jackpot was last won in Tennessee on April 15, there have been more than 21 million winning tickets at all prize levels, including 33 worth $1 million or more.

Four Mega Millions jackpots have been won so far this year. April 15 a ticket in Tennessee was worth $15 million. California saw a $426 million jackpot winner on January 28, New York with a $128 million on March 8 and Minnesota had a $110 million jackpot won on April 12.

Mega Millions began on August 31, 1996 as the Big Game. The first drawing took place on September 6, 1996, with six states participating: Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan and Virginia.

Mega Millions tickets cost $2.00 per play. Players pick six numbers from two separate pools of numbers – five different numbers from 1 to 70 (the white balls) and one number from 1 to 25 (the gold Mega Ball) – or select Easy Pick/Quick Pick. You win the jackpot by matching all six winning numbers in a drawing.