Mega Millions Winning Numbers for $540 Million Jackpot on Friday, July, 8, 2016: UPDATE

The Mega Millions jackpot for Friday, July 8, is an astounding $540 million with a cash option of $380 million.

It’s time to start imaging all of the things you’d buy and do with all of that money.

• The winning numbers for Friday night's Mega Million drawing were 8-19-20-55-73 with a mega ball of 5.

UPDATE: There was one winning ticket and it was sold in Indiana. The top prize in Connecticut was a $10,000 winner, according to the Connecticut Lottery.

See also: 131,880 'Winning' Mega Millions Tickets Sold in Connecticut, But Sadly Not the Grand Prize

The multi-state Mega Millions game began at a paltry sum of just $15 million.

On Tuesday night, seven million-dollar Match 5 winning tickets were sold — including Texas, California, Florida, New Jersey, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Pennsylvania.

• Get Patch's Free Daily Newsletter and Real Time News Alerts in CT

In Connecticut, the Connecticut Lottery says 85,248 "winning tickets" were sold but the top winner here was one person who won $25,000.

Three people won $5,000, three more won $2,500, 24 individuals won $500, 25 people won $250, 99 won $50 and about 80,000 plus people won between $1 and $10. The Connecticut Lottery urges people to play responsibly.

Click here for more information on the Connecticut lottery and where to find a retailer. In Connecticut, you can buy a Mega Millions ticket as late as 10:45 p.m. on the day of a drawing.

It’s not $1.5 billion but still
It’s unclear if anything could ever replicate the hysteria that occurred in January, when the Powerball numbers exceeded the $1 billion mark.

Remember that? The jackpot eventually grew to $1.586 billion before the winning numbers were drawn on Jan. 13 by three people in California, Florida and Tennessee.

That billion-dollar prize at the start of the year still ranks as the undisputed heavyweight among jackpots, but the Mega Millions is emerging as a worthy contender.

A Look at the Top Drawings
The record Mega Millions jackpot is $656 million, and three tickets shared that jackpot on March 30, 2012. Just behind that is the $648 million jackpot split by two winners on Dec. 17, 2013.

At this point in our standard lottery pieces, we're compelled to alert you to the odds of actually matching all six numbers and retiring to live a life of leisure: Tuesday's odds were one in 259 million.

To put that in perspective, the odds of getting struck by lightning are 1 in 12,000, according to the National Weather Service. So you do the math.

As mentioned, Friday's draw will rank as the seventh-largest in recorded U.S. history.

Just for grins, here's a list of the top — and staggeringly, rather shockingly huge — jackpots of the recent past:

• Game: Powerball

Amount: $1.586 billion
Date: 1/13/2016
Winning tickets: 3-CA, FL, TN

• Game: Mega Millions

Amount: $656.0 million
Date: 3/30/2012
Winning tickets: 3-IL, KS, MD

• Game: Mega Millions

Amount: $648 million
Date: 12/17/2013
Winning tickets: 2-CA, GA

• Game: Powerball

Amount: $590.5 million
Date: 5/18/2013
Winning tickets: 1-FL

• Game: Powerball

Amount: $587.5 million
Date: 11/28/2012
Winning tickets: 2-AZ, MO

• Game: Powerball

Amount: $564.1 million
Date: 2/11/2015
Winning tickets: 3-NC, PR, TX

• Game: Mega Millions

Amount: $540.0 million (est)
Date: 7/7/2016
Winning ticket: ?

• Game: Powerball

Amount: $448.4 million
Date: 8/7/2013
Winning ticket: 3-MN, NJ(2)

• Game: Powerball

Amount: $429.6 million
Date: 5/7/2016
Winning ticket: 1-NJ

• Game: Powerball

Amount: $425.3 million
Date: 2/19/2014
Winning ticket: 1-CA