Mega Millions Jackpot Nears $1 Billion for Christmas Eve Drawing

There’s extra magic in the air this holiday season as the Mega Millions® jackpot has grown to almost a billion dollars! A massive prize currently estimated at $944 million ($429.4 million cash) is on tap for the next drawing on Tuesday, December 24. The jackpot rolled again after no ticket matched all six numbers drawn Friday night – the white balls 2, 20, 51, 56 and 67, plus the gold Mega Ball 19. If won at that level, it would be the largest prize ever won in December and the seventh largest in Mega Millions history!

Thirteen Mega Millions jackpots have been won during December since the game began in 2002, but only once has it been won on Christmas Eve. That was in the game’s very first year, yet the $68 million prize won in New York on December 24, 2002, eventually went unclaimed. In a multi-state game like Mega Millions, unclaimed jackpots revert to the participating states based on their contribution to sales. The funds are then distributed as defined by the lottery legislation in each jurisdiction. For example, the money may go back to players for extra prizes or it may revert to lottery beneficiaries (such as education or scholarships).

In the December 20 drawing, there were a total of 2,068,988 winning tickets across all non-jackpot prize levels. Five tickets matched the five white balls for the game’s $1 million second-tier prize. Two were sold in Indiana, with one each in Arkansas, Illinois and Pennsylvania.

Around the country, 48 tickets matched four white balls plus the Mega Ball to win the third-tier prize. Eleven of those are worth $20,000 each because they included the optional Megaplier (available in most states with an extra $1 purchase), which was 2X Friday night; the other 37 take home the standard $10,000 each.

While the jackpot has been rolling since it was last won at $810 million in Texas on September 10, there have been more than 21.4 million winning tickets sold in the 29 drawings since then. These include 56 second-tier prizes of $1 million or more, won in 24 different jurisdictions from coast to coast: Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia and Wisconsin.

Note: Prize amounts in California will vary, as they are calculated on a pari-mutuel basis.

The Mega Millions jackpot has been won only three times this year, so far the fewest won in any single year since the game began. Before the Texas win on September 10, the jackpot had been won on just two earlier occasions in 2024. The biggest lottery prize ever awarded to an online player was a $552 million jackpot taken in Illinois on June 4. And on March 26, a $1.128 billion prize was won in New Jersey. No one has yet come forward to claim that jackpot; the ticket will expire if not claimed by March 26, 2025.

Mega Millions is the only lottery game that has produced six jackpots greater than $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 in August 2023, and New Jersey last 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:

Source: Mega Millions

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