$1.1B Mega Millions Jackpot: When To Buy Tickets In PA

PENNSYLVANIA — Another enormous lottery jackpot will be up for grabs in Pennsylvania and around the nation Tuesday night as the Mega Millions jackpot has swelled to $1.1 billion. The most recent drawing on Friday night did not produce a jackpot winner.

Drawings are held at 11 p.m. Eastern Time on Tuesdays and Fridays.

To be included in Tuesday’s drawing, players in Pennsylvania must purchase their tickets by 9:59 p.m.

Tuesday night’s jackpot is the third-largest in the history of the game. The game’s record prize of $1.537 billion, was won in South Carolina on Oct. 23, 2018.

"It’s an exciting time to be playing Mega Millions," Pennsylvania Lottery Executive Director Drew Svitko said last week, noting the near-record jackpot.

Drawings are announced live in Pennsylvania on the following local stations:

• Philadelphia: WTXF Ch. 29 Lottery Results at 11:00 p.m.
• Pittsburgh: WPXI Ch. 11 Lottery Results at 11:11 p.m.
• Wilkes-Barre/Scranton: WNEP Ch. 16 Lottery Results at 11:00 p.m.
• Harrisburg/Lancaster/York: WGAL Ch. 8 Lottery Results at 11:20 p.m.
• Johnstown/Altoona/State College: WTAJ Ch. 10 Lottery Results at 11:20 p.m.
• Erie: WJET Ch. 24 Lottery Results at 11:20 p.m.

Three lottery players or groups in Pennsylvania have claimed more than $700 million since 2002, according to Mega Millions records. A $516 million jackpot was won in 2021, $153 million in 2015, and $149 million in 2014.

Although jackpot winners can choose to be paid through an annuity, with annual checks over 29 years, nearly all take the cash payout. For Tuesday’s drawing, that’s an estimated $568.7 million.

A player in Illinois claimed a $1.337 billion ticket in the July 29 drawing. The only other Mega Millions jackpot worth more than a billion dollars was claimed by a player in Michigan on Jan. 22, 2021.

Long streaks without a winner allow jackpots to grow larger week after week. The last time the Mega Millions jackpot was claimed was Oct. 14, when two winners in San Jose, California, and Fort Myers, Florida, shared in a $502 million jackpot.

Some of the other big Mega Millions jackpots include:

• $656 million, shared by three players in Illinois, Kansas and Maryland in March 2012
• $648 million, shared by two players in California and Georgia in December 2013
• $543 million, won by a California player in July 2018
• $536 million, won an Indiana player in July 2016
• $533 million, won by a player in New Jersey in March 2018
• $522 million, won by a player in California in June 2019

Although weeks without a winner causes the jackpot to grow, Tuesday’s is still a far cry from the record $2.04 billion Powerball jackpot won in California on Nov. 8. The player has yet to come forward to claim the prize.

The Powerball game also claims the second-largest lottery jackpot in U.S. history, but barely. A $1.59 billion prize in January 2016 was shared by three winners in California, Florida and Tennessee.

The odds of winning the Mega Millions jackpot — about 1 in 302.6 million — don’t increase with a flurry of ticket sales. But they are better than the odds a meteor will hit your house, according to a report from Business Insider. And the odds of a perfect NCAA basketball bracket chosen by a coin flip are 9,223,372,036,854,775,808, or 1 in 9.2 quintillion.

Although no one claimed the jackpot in the Friday, Jan. 6, drawing, five players matched the five white balls to win the game’s $1 million second-tier prie. Two $1 million tickets were sold in New York, and one each was sold in Florida, Maryland and New Jersey.

Across the country, 115 tickets matched four white balls plus the Mega Ball to win the third-tier prize. Fifteen of those tickets are worth $30,000 each, because they included the optional Megaplier (available in most states with an extra $1 purchase), which was 3X on Friday night. The other 100 third-tier winning tickets are worth $10,000 each.

The winning numbers for the Jan. 6 drawing were 3, 20, 46, 59, 63 and the Mega Ball was 13.

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