Mega Millions Jackpot In CA Swells To $1.28B In Friday Drawing

CALIFORNIA — Golden Staters will flock to local stores on Friday night for a chance to win the newly swollen jackpot in the Mega Millions lottery prize of $1.28 billion.

The cash payout is $747.2 million in the drawing, which takes place at 8 p.m. PST. Sales are cut off by 7:45 p.m.

If no one claims the jackpot on Friday, lottery officials expect the prize to swell to $1.7 million for the next drawing on Tuesday, which would eclipse the $1.5 billion prizes won in 2018 and 2016.

A buyer of a Mega Millions ticket in the Southern California desert town of Baker won $2.9 million after matching five out of six numbers in Tuesday's drawing. The ticket, purchased at the Country Store, met every number except the Mega number, which would have bumped the prize up to the $830 million jackpot, the California lottery reported.

State lottery systems across the nation use revenue from ticket sales to boost tourism, transportation and other state interests. Now that the jackpot has ballooned past $1 billion, state officials are hoping increased national interest in securing the top prize will result in more funding for their own causes.

Although no one claimed the jackpot in Tuesday's drawing, several players did win lower-value prizes by matching some of the winning numbers — 7-29-60-63-66. The Mega Ball number was 15 and the Megaplier number was 3x.

Those winners included a $2.9 million ticket sold in California, where the player chose the correct Megaplier number. Another ticket sold in Ohio is worth $3 million because it included the Megaplier.

Mega Millions tickets are available at gas stations, convenience stores and supermarkets in states where the game is played, the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Only five U.S. states — Alabama, Alaska, Hawaii, Nevada and Utah — haven't authorized the Mega Millions game.

The largest jackpot in U.S. history was the $1.586 billion Powerball prize shared by players from California, Florida and Tennessee on Jan. 13, 2016. A single player from South Carolina won the $1.537 billion Mega Million ticket on Oct. 23, 2018.

READ MORE: Winners of California Powerball Claim $528 Million Prize

The jackpot has been growing since April 15, when a player in Tennessee won $20 million. Other Mega Millions jackpots claimed in 2022 were in California ($426 million on Jan. 28), New York ($128 million on March 8) and Minnesota ($110 million on April 12).

Overall chances of winning any prize are 1 in 24. The chances of winning the jackpot are much lower — about 1 in 302.5 million. For perspective, the odds of being struck by lightning are less than 1 in 1 million, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Patch editor Beth Dalbey contributed to this report.