The Mega Millions jackpot grows to $1.22 billion ahead of Friday night’s drawing

Friday night’s Mega Millions drawing could result in a winning ticket for the lottery game’s fifth-largest jackpot: $1.22 billion.

The drawing will take place at 11:00 p.m. ET.

The jackpot has been rising since the clock reset on Sept. 13 after someone in Texas hit the $810 million jackpot, Mega Millions officials said. In the last drawing on Christmas Eve, no ticket matched all six numbers.

“We know that many people will likely receive tickets to Friday’s drawing as Christmas gifts, and what a gift that would be to end up with a ticket worth $1.15 billion,” says Joshua Johnston , executive director of the Mega Millions consortium, said in a statement on Wednesday.

Since then, players interested in the billion-dollar-plus number have been buying tickets, contributing to a surge in jackpot growth as the purchase deadline approaches at 10 p.m. ET on Friday.

Residents of eight states can take home the maximum amount from a jackpot win because their state governments do not levy taxes on lottery winnings. These states are California, Florida, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and Wyoming.

A Friday night win would surpass the current fifth-largest jackpot of $1.128 billion, which was drawn on Monday, months after the March 26 drawing.

The winning ticket was purchased at a ShopRite in Neptune Township, New Jersey, Mega Millions officials said. New Jersey winners will have one year to make such a claim.

“It is common for major jackpot winners to take their time making a claim,” Mega Millions officials said in the statement.

The winner, who chose protection under New Jersey law to remain anonymous, chose the cash value of the prize, estimated at $537.5 million before state and federal taxes, Mega officials said Millions.

The federal tax on such an amount is likely to be 37%; New Jersey would tax it at 8%.

The Mega Millions jackpot has found a winner three times so far in 2024. It’s a number that officials said would represent the fewest jackpot wins in a year since the seven-state big game became Mega Millions in 2002.

Mega Millions, which is played in 45 states, Washington, D.C. and the U.S. Virgin Islands, produced 10 jackpots in 2023, the most since major changes to the game in 2013, officials said in a statement Monday.

A player from Florida won the largest Mega Millions jackpot, $1.602 billion, in August 2023. However, as large as this amount is, it could not surpass the multi-state lottery game Powerball’s most valuable jackpot, recorded in November 2022, at $2.040 billion.