RELEASE DATE: 8/31/2024
The Mega Millions® excitement is building! The estimated jackpot for next Tuesday, September 3, is an estimated $681 million ($336.1 million cash). The jackpot keeps growing after no ticket matched all six numbers drawn Friday night – the white balls 10, 17, 20, 24 and 54, plus the gold Mega Ball 8. If won next Tuesday, it would be the seventh largest jackpot in the game’s history.
The month of September has historically been a good month for jackpot wins – a total of 22 since the game began in 2002, most recently a $431 million prize won in New York on September 21, 2021. Next Tuesday’s estimated $681 million jackpot is by far the largest Mega Millions prize ever offered during any September.
The jackpot has been rolling since it was last won at $552 million in Illinois on June 4. In the 25 drawings in this jackpot run to date, there have been almost 17.5 million winning tickets across all non-jackpot prize tiers. These include 49 second-tier prizes of $1 million or more, won in 22 different jurisdictions from coast to coast: Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin.
As the jackpot grows, so does the number of winning tickets at all other prize levels – there were a total of 1,445,634 winning tickets for the August 30 drawing alone. Two of them, one each in Florida and Wisconsin, matched the five white balls to win the game’s second-tier prize. The Wisconsin ticket is worth $4 million because it included the optional Megaplier (available in most states with an extra $1 purchase), which was 4X Friday night. The Florida second-tier ticket wins the standard $1 million second-tier prize.
Across the country, 50 tickets matched four white balls plus the Mega Ball to win the third-tier prize. Six of those are worth $40,000 each because they also included the optional Megaplier; the other 44 take home the standard $10,000 each.
Only two Mega Millions jackpots have been won so far this year. Before the Illinois win on June 4, a whopping $1.128 billion was won in New Jersey. That prize is still unclaimed (winners in New Jersey have one year from the drawing date to claim).
Mega Millions is the only lottery game that has produced six jackpots exceeding $1 billion. All were won in different states – South Carolina was the first in 2018, followed by Michigan in 2021, Illinois in 2022, Maine in early 2023, Florida last August and New Jersey in March. The Florida prize on August 8, 2023, is the game’s current record jackpot at $1.602 billion.
Tickets are sold in 45 states, Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Tickets are $2 each; in most jurisdictions, players can add the Megaplier for an additional $1 to multiply their non-jackpot prizes. Half of the proceeds from the sale of each Mega Millions ticket remains in the state where the ticket was sold, where the money supports designated good causes and retailer commissions.
Drawings are conducted at 11 p.m. Eastern Time on Tuesdays and Fridays in Atlanta, Georgia. The overall odds of winning any Mega Millions prize are 1 in 24; the odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 302,575,350.
The top Mega Millions jackpots:
| Amount |
Date |
Winning Tickets |
| $1.602 billion |
8/8/2023 |
1-FL |
| $1.537 billion |
10/23/2018 |
1-SC |
| $1.348 billion |
1/13/2023 |
1-ME |
| $1.337 billion |
7/29/2022 |
1-IL |
| $1.128 billion |
3/26/2024 |
1-NJ |
| $1.050 billion |
1/22/2021 |
1-MI |
| $681 million (est) |
9/3/2024 |
? |
| $656 million |
3/30/2012 |
3-IL, KS, MD |
| $648 million |
12/17/2013 |
2-CA, GA |
| $552 million |
6/4/2024 |
1-IL |
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