The Mega Millions jackpot has reached $650 million as of Tuesday, making it the tenth-largest jackpot in the game's history since its inception in 2002. The cash option for the winner is estimated at $304.1 million. This jackpot has been accumulating for over three and a half months, following the last significant win in Virginia on June 27.
The current jackpot run has now reached its 33rd drawing, with the previous drawing on Friday failing to produce a ticket that matched all six drawn numbers: the white balls 9, 21, 27, 48, and 56, along with the gold Mega Ball 10. The lack of a jackpot winner has allowed the prize to grow substantially.
In addition to the jackpot, Friday's drawing yielded 416,751 winning tickets for non-jackpot prizes, amounting to over $8.5 million in payouts. This increase in non-jackpot prizes is attributed to a game structure change implemented last April, which has reportedly led to hundreds of millions more being paid out.
Mega Millions tickets are priced at $5 each and are available for purchase in 45 states, Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Purchases typically close one to two hours before the drawing, which occurs at 11 p.m. Eastern Time on Tuesdays and Fridays in Atlanta, Georgia. The odds of winning any Mega Millions prize stand at 1 in 23, while the odds of securing the jackpot are 1 in 290,472,336. The last major jackpot prior to this was in December, when the prize reached $1.269 billion.