The record-breaking Mega Millions jackpot was won Tuesday night by a ticket purchased in Florida. The $1.58 billion jackpot was the largest in the game’s history.
There were 31 drawings without a jackpot win dating back to April 18.
A single ticket sold in Florida matched all six numbers in the Aug. 8 drawing – the white balls 13, 19, 20, 32 and 33, plus the gold Mega Ball 14. I
t’s the fourth time a jackpot-winning ticket has been sold in Florida; two prior wins were shared with other states, most recently a $502 million prize split with California last Oct. 14.
Pending final sales reconciliations across all 47 participating lotteries, Tuesday night’s jackpot win is expected to set a new record for game, surpassing the previous record of $1.537 billion. That big prize was won in South Carolina on Oct. 23, 2018.
“Congratulations to the Florida Lottery for selling a jackpot-winning ticket in Tuesday’s $1.58 billion Mega Millions drawing,” said Georgia Lottery President and CEO Gretchen Corbin, lead director of the Mega Millions Consortium. “We congratulate our newest jackpot winner, as well as the more than 43.7 million winners at all prize levels throughout this jackpot run.”
During this incredible run, those 43.7 million winning tickets across all tiers included 69 second-tier prizes of $1 million or more, won in 28 different jurisdictions from coast to coast: Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia and Wisconsin. There was no $1 million dollar winner in Virginia.
The Aug. 8 drawing produced far more than a jackpot win, with 7,056,452 winning tickets at all other prize levels.
Seven tickets matched the five white balls to win the game’s second-tier prize.
Two, sold in Florida and North Carolina, are worth $2 million each, because they included the optional Megaplier (available in most states with an extra $1 purchase), which was 2X on Tuesday night.
The other five Match 5 tickets win the standard second-tier prize of $1 million; they were sold in California, Pennsylvania, Texas (two) and West Virginia.
Across the country, 166 tickets matched four white balls plus the Mega Ball to win the third-tier prize. Twenty-eight of those tickets are worth $20,000 each, because they also included the optional Megaplier. The other 138 third-tier winning tickets are worth $10,000 each.
Tickets for the $2 game are sold in 45 states, Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
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.
The jackpot for the next drawing on Friday, Aug. 11, resets to its current starting value of $20 million ($9.9 million cash).
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Crystal Graham
