Mega Millions Jackpot Swells To Record $970 Million
(CBS News) -- The Mega Millions jackpot ballooned to a record high: $970 million for Friday night's drawing, the second-largest lottery jackpot in U.S. history.
The increase comes two days after no ticket matched all six winning numbers drawn Tuesday night and dwarfs the Powerball $430 million jackpot up for grabs when those numbers are chosen around 11 p.m. ET Saturday night.
Tuesday's Mega Millions winning numbers were 3, 45, 49, 61, 69 with a Mega Ball of 9 for a jackpot worth $667 million at the time. It had increased early Wednesday to $868 million and officials raised the jackpot to $900 million later in the day. They say the estimated cash value for Friday's jackpot is $548.6 million.
If the winner chooses the annuity option, the jackpot would be paid out over 29 years. The cash option is usually favored by the winners.
A young man who works in the bakery of the San Francisco Safeway store on Marina Boulevard bought a ticket matching 5 of 6 numbers that ended up being worth $1.9 million.
The jackpot keeps swelling because nobody has won since July 24, when 11 workers in a California office shared $543 million, the largest prize ever won on a single ticket in the game.
Mega Millions says its previous record jackpot was a $656 million prize that was shared by winners from Kansas, Illinois and Maryland in March 2012.
"Everyone is talking about the jackpot and running out to buy tickets for tonight's drawing," Gordon Medenica, Mega Millions lead director and Maryland Lottery and Gaming director, said in a press release about Tuesday night's suspense.
Nine Mega Millions tickets from Tuesday's drawing matched five white balls to win the second prize – $1 million. And one of those, sold in Texas, had the Megaplier option, available in most states for an extra $1. That ticket is worth $5 million.
The Powerball jackpot up for grabs Saturday night will be a hefty $430 million, with a cash value of $248 million. The Powerball winning numbers selected Wednesday night were 3, 57, 64, 68 and 69 with the Powerball being 15.
The largest Powerball jackpot -- and biggest in U.S. lottery history -- was $1.586 billion, which was shared by winners in California, Florida and Tennessee in January 2016.
The odds of winning a jackpot remain abysmal at 1 in 302 million for Mega Millions and 1 in 292.2 million for Powerball.
