This Christmas Eve, One Lucky Lottery Ticket Could Win a Mega Millions Jackpot Approaching $1 Billion
This Christmas Eve, one lucky lottery ticket could be holding the key to a record-breaking Mega Millions jackpot of nearly $1 billion, the largest prize ever offered in the month of December. With no winner in Friday’s drawing, the grand prize has grown to $944 million, with the option to take a lump sum of $429.4 million or receive the money through annuitized payments.
Friday’s winning numbers were 2, 20, 51, 56, 67, and Mega Ball 19. Although no tickets matched all six numbers, five lucky players in Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, and Pennsylvania each won $1 million by matching the first five numbers.
This is part of what the Mega Millions organization is calling the “most unusual jackpot year,” with a total of four prizes over $800 million and another four over $500 million so far this year. Historically, December has been a lucky month for Mega Millions players, with 13 jackpots won during the holiday season, but only one on Christmas Eve.
The chances of winning a Mega Millions jackpot are approximately 1 in 302.5 million. According to Joshua Johnston, lead director of the Mega Millions Consortium, ticket sales tend to increase during the holidays as people are out and about shopping. “There’s just really not a product on the market for two bucks that will give you an opportunity throughout the course of a few days to just kind of imagine and dream what it would be like to win that sum of money,” he said. “And that’s just so much fun to think about, especially around the holidays, when there’s already a sense of magic in the air.”
