Mega Millions jackpot hits $1.35 billion ahead of Friday’s drawing

Friday night, the lucky winner could pocket $1.35 billion, the fourth-largest lottery jackpot and the second-largest in Mega Millions history.

It has been there for almost three months there is no lottery winnerMega Millions said, adding to the excitement ahead of Friday night’s drawing.

The single jackpot winner in Friday’s drawing will be eligible for a one-time cash payment of approximately $724.6 million before taxes. Or they could take the annuity option, which would consist of 29 annual payments.

According to information on the lottery resource website, each payment will average about $45 million. Mega USA. After federal taxes and excluding state taxes, the one-time payment for Mega will be approximately US$446 million.

If there are multiple winners on Friday, they will split the jackpot equally.

One winning Powerball ticket was sold in the Los Angeles metro area in November won the $2.04 billion jackpotthe largest lottery in history.

South Carolina single ticket argued in October 2018, the largest Mega Millions jackpot was $1.537 billion. And in July, the ticket was sold in Illinois won Mega Millions jackpot of $1.337 billion, the third largest in history if Friday’s numbers hold.

The odds of winning the Mega Millions jackpot are 1 in 302.6 million.

“To put that in perspective, a typical golfer would have about a 1 in 15,000 chance of making a hole-in-one on a particular hole,” Holy Cross economics professor Victor Matheson told CBS News earlier this week. “So winning the Powerball or Mega Millions is like getting two holes in a row while playing golf.”

Matheson said the Multistate Lottery Association, the nonprofit group that coordinates Mega Millions, purposely designed the game to win big by making it harder to win the jackpot and increasing the cost of each ticket from $1 to $2.