Did Anyone Win The $1 Billion Jackpot?

NEPTUNE TOWNSHIP, NJ - After growing for more than 15 weeks, the Mega Millions jackpot finally has its first winner of 2024. 

A lucky ticket-holder in New Jersey matched all six numbers drawn Tuesday night – the white balls 7, 11, 22, 29, and 38, plus the gold Mega Ball 4 – to take home the estimated prize of $1.13 billion ($537.5 million cash). 

It is the fifth largest jackpot in the game's history. Because jackpots are always based on actual sales, the official jackpot amount will be determined after sales from all 47 participating jurisdictions are finalized on Wednesday morning.

“Congratulations to the New Jersey Lottery for selling a jackpot-winning ticket in Tuesday’s $1.13 billion Mega Millions drawing,” said Georgia Lottery President and CEO Gretchen Corbin, lead director of the Mega Millions Consortium. “We celebrate our new jackpot winner, as well as all the prizes won and dollars raised for good causes during this exciting jackpot run.”

In the March 26 drawing alone, 3,693,854 winning tickets were sold, including the single jackpot winner. Thirteen tickets matched the five white balls to win the game’s second-tier prize. 

One, sold in New York, is worth $2 million because it included the optional Megaplier (available in most states with an extra $1 purchase), which was 2X Tuesday night. The other 12 second-tier prizes won the standard $1 million each and were won in California, Colorado, Florida (2), Georgia (2), Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, New York (2) and Ohio.

Across the country, 171 tickets matched four white balls plus the Mega Ball to win the game’s third-tier prize. Thirty-four of these tickets are worth $20,000 each because they included the optional Megaplier; the other 137 third-tier winning tickets are worth $10,000 each.

The jackpot for the next drawing, which is on Friday, March 29, resets to its current starting value of $20 million ($9.5 million cash).

Mega Millions is the only lottery game with six jackpot wins exceeding $1 billion each in different states. South Carolina was the first in 2018, followed by Michigan in 2021, Illinois in 2022, Maine in early 2023, Florida last August (the current game record jackpot of $1.602 billion), and New Jersey in March 2024.

Tickets are sold in 45 states, Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Tickets are $2 each; in most jurisdictions, players can add the Megaplier for an additional $1 to multiply their non-jackpot prizes. Half of the proceeds from the sale of each Mega Millions ticket remains in the state where the ticket was sold, where the money supports designated good causes and retailer commissions.

Drawings are conducted at 11 p.m. Eastern Time on Tuesdays and Fridays in Atlanta, Georgia. The odds of winning any Mega Millions prize are 1 in 24; the odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 302,575,350.

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