If a player wins the grand prize on the upcoming drawing on Tuesday, the jackpot would be the second largest won in December since Mega Millions’ launch in 2002
The most recent drawing for America’s popular lottery game, Mega Millions, took place on Friday, November 29, 2024. While many tried their luck for the $514 million jackpot at the time, no ticket matched correctly white balls 3, 29, 34, 37 and 38 along with the gold Mega Ball 17.
Mega Millions Grand Prize Continues to Increase
Ahead of the holidays, the grand prize of the popular lottery game now continues to grow. An estimated $541 million jackpot will be up for grabs on the next drawing scheduled for Tuesday, December 3, 2024, at 11 PM ET.
As usual, there’s a cash option for the jackpot, in case a lucky winner beats the 1 in 302.5 million odds of winning the top prize. In case this happens, and the fortunate winner picks the cash option, they would benefit from $257.6 million before the applicable state and federal taxes are applied.
If won on Tuesday, the Mega Millions jackpot would be the second largest for the month of December since the launch of the game in 2002. A total of 13 grand prizes have been won in December since 2002 and only one jackpot was bigger than the current estimate.
The largest jackpot in December was $648 million which was split by two players, one from Georgia and one from California back on December 17, 2013. Besides the second-largest jackpot in December, the current estimated jackpot is only the third time the grand prize has surpassed $500 million for this month in particular.
The Recent Drawing Produced Nearly 1M Winning Tickets
Not unexpectedly, the growth of the jackpot coincides with an increase in the interest in Mega Millions. While there was no winner of the grand prize from the latest drawing on November 29, there were some 854,056 winning tickets within the game’s different prize tiers.
A fortune Mega Millions player from Oregon matched correctly all white balls for a $1 million tier-two prize. On the other hand, 22 tickets across the country matched four white balls together with the gold Mega Ball for a tier-three prize. Out of the 22 tickets, six paid extra for the game’s Megaplier option, taking home $20,000 each, while the remaining took home $10,000 each.
A total of 516 fortunate players matched correctly four white balls in Friday’s drawing. While 102 of those won a $1,000 Megaplier prize each, the remaining players collected the standard $500 prize each.
