Mega Millions Jackpot Climbs To $33 Million As Lottery Looks For 8th Winner Of 2014


The Mega Millions jackpot crept up another notch after Tuesday’s numbers in the nationwide lottery matched none of the approximately 14.5 million tickets sold for the 50th Mega Millions drawing of the year.

Friday’s Mega Millions drawing will carry a top jackpot of $33 million to a winner, if there is one, who takes the prize in 30 annual payments.

The 14,514,016 tickets sold marked the third-lowest sales total of those 50 drawings in 2014, a year in which more than 1.2 billion Mega Millions tickets have been sold so far — and among those 1.2 billion tickets, there have been seven jackpot winners, the latest coming just four drawings ago when one ticket buyer in a suburb of Detroit, Michigan, bought a ticket at a gas station that ended up winning a $66 million jackpot on June 13.

All three of those lowest-selling drawing have occurred in the past month, starting on May 27 when a Mega Millions drawing with a $20 million jackpot attracted just 13,925,281 ticket sales. On June 17, the first drawing after the most recent Mega Millions winner, sold 14,295,850. The jackpot for that drawing was the minimum $15 million.

The chances of matching all six Mega Millions numbers are one in 258,890,000. But this year, there has been one jackpot winner for every 177,992,088 tickets sold.

There was one second-prize winner in Tuesday’s Mega Millions drawing, as a single player in California matched the first five numbers but missing the Mega Ball number. The prize for a “Match 5” ticket winner would normally be a flat $1 million. But because California pays out prizes other than the top jackpot on a pari-mutuel basis, the holder of that lone second-prize ticket will receive a before-tax payout of $1,669,781.

Friday’s Mega Millions drawing also saw 17 third-prize winners — though of course payouts drop off precipitously after the second prize. The third prize, achieved by matching the Mega Ball plus four of the first five Mega Millions numbers, pays $5,000.

Does any of that cash belong to you? To find out, check your Mega Millions ticket against the following numbers, drawn at 10:59 pm in Atlanta, Georgia.

13172447 65 Mega Ball 10

The cash value of Friday’s Mega Millions jackpot, for a potential winner who chooses to take the money as single payment, will be $19 million.

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