The Mega Millions jackpot has reached an impressive $800 million, offering a substantial cash option of $371.7 million for the next drawing scheduled for Tuesday. This surge in the jackpot follows a recent drawing on Halloween, where no player successfully matched all six drawn numbers.
Historically, November has seen fewer jackpot winners; the last occasion a jackpot was claimed during this month was in 2016. However, since the inception of the game in 2002, there have been 16 November jackpots, with the largest amounting to $326 million, won in New York on November 4, 2014. The current jackpot has been accumulating since it was last won in Virginia on June 27.
In the latest drawing prior to this upcoming event, a total of 557,912 winning tickets for non-jackpot prizes were issued, amounting to $10.9 million in payouts. Should a player match all six numbers on Tuesday, the prize would be recognized as the ninth-largest jackpot in the history of the Mega Millions lottery.
Tickets for the game are available for purchase at a price of $5 each in 45 states, Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The cut-off times for ticket purchases typically range from one to two hours before the drawing, which occurs at 11 p.m. Eastern Time on Tuesdays and Fridays in Atlanta, Georgia. The overall odds of winning any prize in Mega Millions are approximately 1 in 23, while the odds of winning the jackpot stand at 1 in 290,472,336.