NEW YORK (WABC) – A lone ticket holder in Maine is set to celebrate a very lucky New Year after this ticket is the only one to have all six numbers drawn in Friday night’s Mega Millions drawing.
The prize is an estimated $1.35 billion ($724.6 million in cash) which is the second largest jackpot in the game’s history!
The numbers drawn late Friday night were: 30, 43, 45, 46, 61 and Gold Mega Ball 14.
Even if you weren’t that one winning ticket holder, don’t throw away your tickets just yet. Tickets worth $1 million were sold at Mega News Inc in Manhattan and Momta Grocery Inc in Long Island City.
The jackpot has been rolling since it was last won on October 14 when a $502 million prize was split between the California and Florida winning tickets.
This 26-draw jackpot run ends with a bang, with 7,072,832 winning tickets across all nine prize tiers in the January 13th drawing alone, including the jackpot winning ticket. Fourteen entries matched all five white balls to win the game’s $1 million second-tier prize. Four were sold in New York, two in California, and one each in Florida, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Texas.
For the combination of four white balls plus the Mega Ball, 164 tickets have a third class win. Of these, 27 included the optional Megaplier (available in most states with an additional $1 purchase), which was double the price Friday night; They are worth $20,000 each. The remaining 137 second-class winner tickets will take home the standard prize of $10,000.
The odds of winning a Mega Millions draw are slim at one in nearly 303 million.
The Friday night jackpot win is the seventh on a Friday 13th since the game began in 2002 and the first on such a day since October 2017.
Michigan was particularly lucky with Mega Millions jackpots on Friday the 13th, winning four of them (June 2008, May 2011, June 2014 and October 2017). This 2017 jackpot was shared with a winner in Rhode Island. Other Friday 13th jackpots were won in New York (March 2009) and Ohio (November 2015). However, none of them came close to the estimated $1.35 billion won this time around.
Here’s a look at the top 10 biggest US jackpots won and the states where the winning tickets were sold:
1. $2.04 billion, Powerball, November 8, 2022 (one ticket from California)
2. $1.586 billion, Powerball, January 13, 2016 (three lots from California, Florida, Tennessee)
3. $1.537 billion, Mega Millions, October 23, 2018 (one ticket from South Carolina)
4. $1.35 billion, Mega Millions, January 13, 2023 (a ticket from Maine)
5. $1.337 billion, Mega Millions, July 29, 2022 (one ticket, from Illinois)
6. $1.05 billion, Mega Millions, January 22, 2021 (one ticket, from Michigan)
7. $768.4 million, Powerball, March 27, 2019 (one ticket from Wisconsin)
8. $758.7 million, Powerball, August 23, 2017 (one ticket from Massachusetts)
9. $731.1 million, Powerball, January 20, 2021 (one ticket from Maryland)
10. $699.8 million, Powerball, October 4, 2021 (one ticket from California)
RELATED: Here’s What You Might Buy If You Win
The credit for the recent big prizes is actually due to the math – and tougher odds.
In the fall of 2017, lottery officials approved changes to Mega Millions that significantly increased the odds from one in 258.9 million to one in 302.6 million. They made similar changes to Powerball in October 2015, downgrading the odds from one in 175.2 million to one in 292.2 million.
The idea was that by reducing the frequency of jackpots, ticket revenue could increase week after week, creating huge prizes that would draw attention and attract more players who had become blasé about $100 million or $200 million.
In August 2021, Powerball also added a third weekly draw, which allowed the jackpot to increase and grow even faster as players had more chances to play and lose. Mega Millions has stuck with the two weekly draws.
Thanks to these moves, nine of the top 10 biggest lottery prizes have been won since 2017.
Mega Millions is played in 45 states plus Washington, DC and the US Virgin Islands.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
CLOCK: New York State lottery drawings are shown live at 2:30 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. daily, and at 8:15 p.m. Wednesday and Saturday
power ball Drawings are also streamed here on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays at 10:59pm
mega millions Draws are streamed on Tuesdays and Fridays at 11pm
The New York Lottery is North America’s largest and most profitable lottery, contributing billions of dollars to support education in New York State.
Proceeds are distributed to local school districts using the same statutory formula used to distribute other government educational grants. According to the New York Lottery, the formula takes into account both the size of a school district and its income level; larger, lower-income school districts receive proportionally larger shares of lottery school funding.
For more information about the New York Lottery and lottery results, visit nylottery.ny.gov.
New Yorkers struggling with, or know someone who is, a gambling addiction can find help by calling the state’s toll-free, confidential HOPEline at 1-877-8-HOPENY (1-877-846-7369) or an SMS to HOPENY ( 467369). Standard SMS charges may apply.
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