Mega Millions Hits $640 Million, One of the Highest Jackpots Ever for Lottery Game

The Mega Millions jackpot swelled to an estimated annuitized $640 million — the seventh-largest sum in the game’s history — after Friday night’s drawing failed to produce a winner for the top prize.

The numbers drawn Friday night were: 10, 24, 48, 51 and 66, with a gold Mega Ball number of 15.

Though those numbers didn’t add up to a nine-figure jackpot for anyone, some still came out winners.

Four tickets matched all five white ball numbers: two in California, and one each in North Carolina and South Carolina. 

The California and North Carolina tickets were good for $1 million each, while the South Carolina ticket was worth $2 million because it was bought with an optional multiplier.

The Mega Millions jackpot has grown largely alongside Powerball’s top prize, which sat at $875 million as of Saturday morning. That makes the current combined value of the two games’ jackpots an eye-popping $1.515 billion.

The next Mega Millions drawing will be held Tuesday at 11 p.m. ET. The game is played in 45 states plus Washington, D.C. and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

A jackpot winner can elect to take the full $640 million over 29 annual installments or a lump sum that, as of Saturday, stood at an estimated $328 million.

But first, someone needs to beat the very long odds of 1 in 302,575,350, which make it far more likely to get struck by lightning, killed by a meteor or bitten by a shark — itself a very rare occurrence.

And, as with Powerball, the only way to increase your odds of winning, even slightly, is to buy more tickets.