The hunt for America's newest BILLIONAIRE! Single Michigan ticket wins $1B Mega Millions jackpot - the third largest prize in U.S. history
One winning ticket was sold in Michigan for the $1billion Mega Millions jackpot, making it the third-largest lottery prize in US history.
The winning numbers drawn Friday are: 4, 26, 42, 50, 60 and a Mega Ball of 24.
The Mega Millions top prize had been growing since September 15, when a winning ticket was sold in Wisconsin.
The jackpot for the Mega Millions lottery game grew after more than four months without a winner thanks to bad luck, poor odds and reduced play partially blamed on the coronavirus pandemic.
The lottery's next estimated jackpot is $20million.
Friday night's drawing comes two days after a ticket sold in Maryland matched all six numbers drawn and won a $731.1million Powerball jackpot.
A Michigan resident bought the winning Mega Millions lottery ticket on Friday
The Michigan resident won the $1billion jackpot - the third largest in US history
Only two lottery prizes in the United States have been larger than Friday's jackpot.
Three tickets for a $1.586billion Powerball jackpot were sold in January 2016, and one winning ticket sold for a $1.537billion Mega Millions jackpot in October 2018.
The jackpot figures refer to amounts if a winner opts for an annuity, paid in 30 annual installments.
Most winners choose a cash prize, which for the Mega Millions jackpot is $739.6million.
The odds of winning a Mega Millions jackpot are incredibly steep at one in 302.5 million.
The game is played in 45 states as well as Washington, DC, and the US Virgin Islands.
Sales of Mega Millions and Powerball continued to decline after the virus hit along with other lottery games, but while scratch tickets and other instant games rebounded strongly later in the year, national game sales remained moribund.
In response to falling sales, officials updated the national games to reduce starting jackpots from $40million to $20million and changed rules about guaranteed minimum increases between drawings.
The moves made fiscal sense but they caused jackpots to grow more slowly, further tamping down sales, as demonstrated by the record 37 draws without a winner it took to reach the current Mega Millions jackpot that's still far less than the all-time highs.
Friday night's drawing comes two days after a ticket sold in Maryland matched all six numbers drawn and won a $731.1 million Powerball jackpot
By design, Mega Millions and Powerball are relatively generous in awarding small dollar prizes and lottery officials boast there is a roughly one in 24 chance of winning something.
But to generate huge jackpots, officials must be absolutely miserly about paying jackpots.
It's hard to fathom how unlikely it is to beat odds of one in 292.2 million for Powerball or one in 302.5 million for Mega Millions.
To get a sense of your chances, Steven Bleiler, a mathematics and statistics professor at Portland State University, said people should imagine a swimming pool 40 feet (12.2 meters) wide, 120 feet (36.6 meters) long and 5 feet (1.5 meters) deep, filled to the brim with M&Ms, only one of which is green.
To win, all a player must do is jump in blindfolded and wade around until finding that single green candy.
Andrew Swift, a mathematics professor at the University of Nebraska-Omaha, put it this way: Your chances of picking up two oysters and finding a pearl in both is about twice as likely as winning either lottery jackpot.
Still, someone always ultimately wins, and it happened again after Wednesday night's Powerball drawing when a single ticket sold at a convenience store in the small community of Lonaconing, Maryland, hit all six numbers.
The winner can take a $716.3 annuity paid over 30 years or a cash prize of $546.8 million.
What comes next is unclear. Some states are banking on growth in online games, but while the 10 states that allow purchases on computers and phone apps are seeing rising sales, such purchases remain a relatively small percentage of overall revenue.
