$640M Mega Millions Jackpot In Friday’s Drawing: What To Know In GA

GEORGIA — An estimated $640 million Mega Millions jackpot is up for grabs in Friday’s drawing after no one won the winning numbers Tuesday, the 21st straight drawing without a winner.

In Tuesday’s drawing, no ticket matched all six numbers drawn Tuesday night – the white balls 9, 13, 36, 59 and 61, plus the gold Mega Ball 11. Drawings are held at 11 p.m. Eastern Time on Tuesdays and Fridays.

If a winning ticket is sold for Friday’s drawing, the winner could be paid with an annuity, doled out through annual payments over 29 years. Nearly all winners take the cash option, which for Friday's drawing will be an estimated $328.3 million.

Sixteen lottery players in Georgia have claimed more than $1.7 billion in prizes since 2002, according to Mega Millions records. One person in Roswell claimed prizes from two tickets, worth $23.3 million each, in November 2003. The highest amount claimed was $324 million, claimed by a Stone Mountain resident in December 2013.

The huge Mega Millions jackpot comes less than two months after a record $2.04 billion Powerball jackpot was won in California on Nov. 8. The player has yet to come forward to claim the prize.

The reason for all the big prizes is simple — long odds of 1 in 302.6 million ensure there are few winners, and the long streaks of lottery futility allow jackpots to grow ever larger week after week.

In the 21 drawings since the jackpot was last won on Oct. 14, there have been more than 17 million winning tickets at all prize levels. These include 40 worth $1 million or more, won in 18 different states from coast to coast: Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia.

In Georgia, winners have been from Stone Mountain, Dallas, Atlanta, Carrollton, Portal, Roswell, Savannah, Fitzgerald, Thomasville, Washington, Bainbridge, Dalton, Sharpsburg and Rockmart.

Mega Millions is played in 45 states as well as Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

The Associated Press contributed reporting.