Mega Millions Jackpot Hits $1B, Giving VA Residents A Chance At Riches

VIRGINIA — The historically large Mega Millions jackpot officially graduated from the "millions" category. The jackpot for Friday night's Mega Millions swelled to $1.02 billion after no one matched all five numbers and the Mega Ball on Tuesday night, but the game's top prize will likely grow as lottery fever reaches a frenzied pace.

As it stands now, the Mega Millions cash option is $602.5 million. Mega Millions drawings take place every week on Tuesday and Friday at 11 p.m. Local TV stations air the drawings. The Virginia Lottery will stop selling Mega Millions tickets at 10:45 p.m. on Friday for people who want to become eligible for Friday's drawing.

"We look with anticipation on the growing jackpot," Ohio Lottery Director Pat McDonald, current lead director of the Mega Millions Consortium, said in a news release. "Seeing the jackpot build over a period of months and reaching the billion-dollar mark is truly breathtaking. We encourage customers to keep play in balance and enjoy the ride. Someone is going to win."

More than 188,000 tickets bought in Virginia won prizes in Tuesday’s Mega Millions drawing. That includes four Virginia tickets that each won $10,000. However, no ticket in Virginia or elsewhere matched all six winning numbers to claim the jackpot.

That means the estimated jackpot for the Friday, July 29, drawing could grow to a jaw-dropping $1.025 billion.

In last Friday's drawing, of all the tickets bought in Virginia, more than 95,000 ended up winning a prize. That includes one ticket that won $1 million. The ticket that won $1 million was bought online at valottery.com by a Chesapeake resident. The ticket matched the first five numbers and missed only the Mega Ball number.

In Tuesday's drawing, the four tickets that each won $10,000 matched four of the first five numbers plus the Mega Ball number. They were bought at:

• Giant Food, 10346 Courthouse Road in Spotsylvania
• 7-Eleven, 13821 Heathcote Blvd. in Gainesville
• 7-Eleven, 2256 Red Tide Road, Virginia Beach
• Ashley’s Market, 6445 Rockfish Valley Highway in Afton

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 jackpot for Friday's drawing is the third-largest in the history of the game, and the fourth-largest lottery jackpot in U.S. history. But as ticket sales increase, the jackpot could eclipse the second-largest Mega Millions prize, a $1.o5 billion prize claimed by a player in Michigan.

The largest jackpot in U.S. history was the $1.586 billion Powerball jackpot 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.

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 CDC.