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MARK RALSTON | AFP | Getty Images
At some point, whether it’s Friday night or later, someone is going to win the Mega Millions jackpot.
It probably won’t be you.
With the odds stacked against players matching the six numbers needed to reach the mother lode, the lottery game’s top prize hit around $ 970 million for Friday night’s draw. The cash option – which most winners choose over an annuity – is $ 716.3 million (pre-tax). The jackpot is also the third largest in the history of the American lottery.
Friday night’s draw comes just days after another lottery game won a massive sum of money: A ticket bought in Maryland hit the Powerball jackpot of $ 731.1 million (cash option 546 , $ 8 million), which ranks sixth in the award.
“We know players love big jackpots, and when the numbers are that high it becomes a national phenomenon,” said Gordon Medenica, director of the Maryland Lottery and senior director of Mega Millions.
“Everyone wants to dream of what they would do if they won,” Medenica said.
The Mega Millions jackpot has been climbing since mid-September, when someone won $ 120 million ($ 95.4 million in cash) and the top prize was reset to $ 20 million. According to lottery officials, this represents 37 weeks where no one matches all six numbers in twice-weekly draws, marking the longest stretch in history without a winner.
Each Mega Millions ticket has approximately a 1 in 302 million chance of winning the jackpot. For Powerball, it’s a little better: 1 in 292 million.
Even if you buy multiple tickets, you won’t move the needle much. To give yourself even 50 to 50 chances of winning the Mega Millions jackpot – that is, the same odds when you flip a coin once – you need to buy over 151 million different number combinations. Even then, you cannot guarantee that you are the only winner.
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In fact, the biggest jackpot in US history – a Powerball prize of $ 1.59 billion in 2016 – has been split into three.
For the Friday night draw, lottery officials estimate that 40% of all possible number combinations will be played.
Of course, you can win in the game without hitting the jackpot. The latest Mega Millions draw, held on Tuesday night, produced nearly 5.2 million winning tickets, according to lottery data. This included two winners of $ 2 million each, 11 winners of $ 1 million each and 139 winners who took in at least $ 10,000.
Once the Mega Millions jackpot is won, it will be reset to $ 20 million.
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