Mega Millions Jackpot Nears $1B For Friday’s Drawing: What To Know In GA

The jackpot for Friday’s Mega Millions drawing has grown to $965 million, the eighth-highest in the game’s history, and is fueling ticket sales among lottery players across Georgia.

The massive jackpot, which has a cash value of $445.3 million, grew after no one matched all six numbers in Tuesday’s drawing: the white balls 10, 13, 40, 42 and 46, plus the gold Mega Ball 1.

Mega Millions drawings are held twice a week on Tuesday and Friday nights at 11 p.m. ET.

Tickets are $5 each, with a built-in multiplier feature added in April that automatically increases non-jackpot prizes by 2, 3, 4, 5 or 10 times. Previously, the base ticket was $2, and the multiplier was an optional $1 add-on in most states.

The rule changes were designed to produce larger, faster-growing jackpots and more non-jackpot prizes The changes slightly improved the odds of winning the jackpot, from 1 in 302,575,350 to 1 in 290,472,336, achieved by decreasing the gold Mega Ball pool from 25 to 24 numbers.

The odds of winning any prize also improved, from 1 in 24 to 1 in 23.

Friday’s drawing is the 40th since the jackpot was last won in Virginia on June 27. It’s the longest streak without a jackpot winner since the game began in 2002, and the previous record of 37 drawings was set in January 2021, when a $1.050 billion jackpot was won in Michigan.

Mega Millions said there were 809,030 winning tickets across all prize tiers in Tuesday's drawing, with nationwide winnings totaling more than $27.9 million.

Three tickets matched the five white balls to win the game’s second-tier prize. One ticket sold in Arizona had the 5X multiplier for a $5 million prize; the other two, sold in Iowa and New York, had the 3X multiplier for a $3 million prize.

In this jackpot run to date, close to $316 million in prizes have been awarded across nearly 13.2 million winning tickets at all prize levels. They include 20 second-tier prizes of up to $5 million.

All funding from the Georgia Lottery's digital games, scratch-offs and other games benefit education in the Peach State, lottery officials said.

Online winning tickets have an expiration date of 180 days from the drawing date while instant ticket winners have 90 days from the expired date to claim prizes. Instructions on how to receive prizes are here.

Georgia takes 5.75 percent in state taxes and 24 percent in federal taxes for winnings more than $5,000.

"The (Georgia Lottery Corporation) reports to the IRS and Georgia Department of Revenue the names of winners of prizes above $600. ... Additionally, the GLC is required to check for and deduct any outstanding child support payments for prizes of $2,500 and above and student loans and state taxes for prizes of $5,000 and above, net of wager or ticket cost," lottery officials said on the Georgia Lottery website.