Mega Millions, Powerball: NC’s Biggest Payouts Of 2018

CHARLOTTE, NC — Have you bought a lottery ticket yet? If not, you’re probably going to want to after reading this: the combined winnings for the Mega Millions and the Powerball jackpot this weekend have reached over half a billion dollars.

The drawing for the Mega Millions prize of $422,000,000 takes place Friday at 11 p.m. EST. If you don’t get lucky in that drawing, you could still win big in the Powerball drawing that takes place on Saturday just before 10 p.m. EST. The Powerball jackpot this weekend is $130,000,000.

Individual lottery jackpots have far exceeded the combined prize money in play for this weekend. In January 2016, the Powerball jackpot reached $1.6 billion and the winnings were split among three lucky winners in California, Tennessee and Florida.

While you may not win the big prize, you could still walk away with a good chunk of money in either of the two games. In North Carolina, at least 6 people have won games with multi-million dollar payouts so far in 2018.

Here are some of North Carolina’s biggest lottery payouts in 2018:

• A Lumberton, NC man won $2 million in Powerball in January 2018.
• February 2018 was a month for big wins. A Winston-Salem woman won $4 million in the “100X The Cash” game. A Wilmington couple and a Burlington man each also won $4 million that same month in the Diamond Dazzler scratch-off game
• In May, a Durham man won $5 million in a Mega Cash ticket.
• A Guilford County woman won $4 million in a 100X The Cash scratch-off game.

Be sure to check Patch for the Mega Millions and Powerball winning numbers on Friday and Saturday.

Photo via Shutterstock