Mega Millions jackpot soars to an estimated $944 million for Christmas Eve drawing
By Dalia Faheid and Artemis Moshtaghian, CNN
(CNN) — This Christmas Eve, one lucky lottery ticket could celebrate with a Mega Millions jackpot nearing $1 billion – the largest prize ever offered in the month of December.
With no one winning the jackpot Friday, the grand prize for Tuesday’s drawing ballooned from $862 million to $944 million, according to the lottery. A jackpot winner in Tuesday’s drawing could choose to receive the money in annuitized payments or take a lump sum estimated at $429.4 million.
Friday’s winning numbers were: 2, 20, 51, 56, 67 and Mega Ball 19.
Although no tickets matched all six numbers in Friday night’s drawing, five tickets still won $1 million each by matching the first five numbers. Those tickets were sold in Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana and Pennsylvania, according to the Mega Millions website.
The holiday drawing is part of what the Mega Millions organization is calling the “most unusual jackpot year.” Since Mega Millions began in 2002, there has never been a single year where all jackpots won ranked among the top 10 largest prizes awarded at the time.
In March, a New Jersey Mega Millions ticket holder won a whopping $1.13 billion prize. In June, an anonymous player in Illinois took home $552 million after punching in the winning numbers in an online lottery purchase. And in September, a Houston-area resident claimed an $800 million Mega Millions jackpot prize a month after purchasing the winning ticket at a gas station convenience store in Sugar Land.
Historically, December has been a pretty lucky month for Mega Millions players, with 13 jackpots won during the holiday season. But the jackpot has only been won once on Christmas Eve, according to Mega Millions.
Overall, the chances of winning a Mega Millions jackpot are approximately 1 in 302.5 million.
“We tend to see sales go up during the holidays,” Joshua Johnston, the lead director of the Mega Millions Consortium, told CNN, adding that the bump in ticket sales happens as people are out and about shopping.
“There’s just really not a product on the market for two bucks that will give you an opportunity throughout the course of a few days to just kind of imagine and dream what it would be like to win that sum of money,” he said. “And that’s just so much fun to think about, especially around the holidays, when there’s already a sense of magic in the air.”
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