RELEASE DATE: 7/25/2018
UPDATED
It has been rolling for more than 11 weeks, but on Tuesday night the Mega Millions jackpot was finally won! A single ticket sold in California matched all six numbers drawn on July 24 – the white balls 1, 2, 4, 19 and 29, plus the gold Mega Ball 20 – to lay claim to the $543 million prize ($320,543,095 cash). The ticket was purchased at Ernie's Liquors in San Jose, Calif. The jackpot was higher than estimated due to strong sales.
“This has been an exciting roll,” said Gordon Medenica, Mega Millions Lead Director and Maryland Lottery and Gaming Director. Congratulations to California for taking home the third largest jackpot in Mega Millions history.”
In addition to the jackpot win, there were many other big winners in the July 24 drawing. Eight tickets matched the five white balls to win the game’s second prize. Six are worth $1 million each, sold in Arizona, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota and New Jersey (two). Two, sold in Massachusetts and Texas, included the optional Megaplier (an optional $1 purchase available in most states) and are worth $3 million each.
For matching four white balls plus the Mega Ball, 102 tickets won the game’s $10,000 third prize Tuesday night. Nine of those are actually worth $30,000 each because they included the optional Megaplier.
In total, there were 3,109,361 winning tickets Tuesday night at all prize levels, including the jackpot. In this jackpot run, since May 4 there have been almost 17.4 million winning tickets at all prize levels, including 35 worth $1 million or more.
The jackpot had been rolling since it was last won in Ohio on May 4, when the ABC XYZ Trust collected $142 million. Two other jackpots have been awarded this year – $451 million on January 5 (in Florida) and $533 million on March 30 (in New Jersey).
For the next drawing on Friday, July 27, the jackpot resets to its starting value of $40 million ($23.6 million cash).
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