Mega Millions Jackpot Bounces Up To $28 Million, Players Wait For Bigger Payoff

The Mega Millions numbers for Friday’s game again produced no jackpot winner, despite a modest uptick in ticket sales. But the uptick was not big enough to move the jackpot up by its usual $10 million. Tuesday’s drawing is now worth $28 million.

Since the Mega Million lottery changed its odds to make jackpots bigger but winning them less likely, there have been three drawings for a $20 million top prize prior to Friday. On one of those occasions, the $20 million jackpot was won. But both other times the jackpot jumped from $20 million to $30 million for the next drawing.

The January 10 Mega Millions $20 million drawing saw a 1,179,395 increase in ticket sales from the prior drawing. On the other hand, the April 1 $20 million Mega Millions game sold a mere 15,707 more than the prior, $15 million drawing. But that was still good for a $10 million increase.

This time, there were 16,901,932 tickets sold, a drawing-to-drawing sales increase of 670,313 but that was worth only an $8 million hike in the Mega Millions jackpot. The sluggish sales would seem to indicate that mere eight-figure sums are not enough to persuade most prospective lottery players to part with a buck for a Mega Millions ticket.

They’re waiting until the jackpot soars into the nine-figure stratosphere before taking the plunge and testing the one-in-258,890,000 odds.

Friday’s drawing was not a particularly lucky one overall. Not only did the Mega Millions numbers fail to yield a jackpot winner, they also proved elusive for the second-place “Match 5” game. Not one of the tickets sold matched the first five numbers, which is generally worth a cool $1 million.

But that doesn’t mean no one won anything. There were 14 tickets sold that matched four of the first five numbers plus the “gold” Mega Ball, which was worth $5,000 in every state but California. In the Golden State, the pari-mutuel system of calculating second-tier prizes yielded a $5,331 payout for the three third-place winners there.

All told, 1,182,681 Mega Million tickets were worth some level of prize, seven percent, or approximately one of every 14 tickets sold. Was yours one of them? Check your ticket against he following numbers, selected at 10:59 pm in Atlanta, Georgia:

3 — 42 — 44 — 47 — 57 Mega Ball 8

Watch a video of Friday’s Mega Millions drawing, below.