After more than four months with no winner, Tuesday’s Mega Millions drawing has grown to $1.6 billion — the biggest lottery prize in world history.
Officials drew numbers Tuesday for an estimated $1.6 billion jackpot in a contest that has not been won since July 24 and has become the kind of big-money “event” where occasional lottery players start crowding convenience stores for tickets.
The winning numbers were 28-70-5-62-65, with the yellow Megaball being 5.
If taken in a single massive payment, as most recent big lottery winners have chosen to do, the prize would be worth $912 million. Federal taxes would quickly consume almost 40 percent of that amount, with state taxes a possibility on top of that.
The $2 Mega Millions tickets are sold in 44 states, along with the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
The chances of winning are 1 in 302.5 million. According to CBS News, for last Friday’s drawing, the first $1 billion prize in U.S. history, only about 59 percent of those 302.5 million possible combinations were taken, though that number was expected to spike to 75 percent for Tuesday. Which means there’s a 25 percent chance of nobody winning and the jackpot likely being around $2 billion on Friday.
The Mega Millions jackpot has gotten so large — it’s more than twice the size of what had previously been the second-biggest jackpot in U.S. history — that it has largely overshadowed a huge Powerball jackpot.
That estimated $620 million jackpot for Wednesday night’s drawing would be the sixth-largest lottery prize in U.S. history. And good news — your chances of winning it are slightly higher than with MegaMillions, at 1 in 292.2 million.
• Victor Morton can be reached at vmorton@washingtontimes.com.
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