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Mega Millions Lottery Jackpot Soars to $405 Million

Just like the Powerball, Mega Millions is also a multi-state lottery in the United States. You can purchase the tickets for this lottery in 44 states as well as the Virgin Islands and Washington D.C. The Mega Millions jackpot begins at $40 million and it increases by a sum of $5 million for every draw that doesn’t have a winner.

History of the Mega Millions

It was in August 1996 that the Mega Millions draw was first introduced under the name of ‘The Big Game’. At first, only six of the total states participated in this draw, but with time, the lottery grew in popularity and now almost every state participates. The name of the lottery was changed twice; the first change was made in 2002 when it was named ‘The Big Game Mega Millions’ and the second change was made in 2005, when it was called the ‘Mega Millions’, as it is today.

A change in structure was introduced by the Mega Millions lottery in October, 2017 in order to make it harder for people to win the jackpot, but to make it easier for them to take home a million-dollar prize. Furthermore, the changes were also aimed at producing larger jackpots due to which the size of the starting jackpot was increased three times. Previously, the jackpots had started at $15 million, but now the minimum amount has been increased to $40 million. A similar restructuring of the lottery had been done back in October, 2012.

The changes made last year also led to an increase in price of the tickets from $1 to $2 whereas the number of white balls was reduced to 70 from 75. For the Mega Ball, the range was increased from 15 numbers to 25. There was also an increase in non-jackpot payouts and there was also an addition of a ‘Just the Jackpot’ option ticket. Through these changes, the Mega Millions has gotten more in line with its competitor, the Powerball lottery as it has attracted a lot of attention due to its massive jackpots.

On March 30th, 2012, the record for the largest United States lottery jackpot was broken by Mega Millions when it awarded a prize worth $656 million. Since then, the record has been broken by several Powerball jackpots, which includes the one awarded on January 13th, 2016 and was worth $1586.4 billion as well as the one awarded on August 23rd, 2017, which was worth $758.7 million. Currently, the record for the third and also fourth-largest jackpots in US history are held by the Mega Millions lottery.

How to Play Mega Millions

When you want to play the Mega Millions lottery, you are required to choose five numbers between the range of 1 and 70 and an additional number has to be selected between 1 and 25. This additional number is referred to as the ‘Mega Ball’. You don’t have to select the first five numbers in any particular order. The basic price of a Mega Millions ticket is $2. There is also a ‘Megaplier’ option applicable where you have to pay $1 for every ticket for multiplying every prize you win, other than the jackpot, by two, three, four or five.

The value of the Megaplier is also drawn randomly at the same time the winning numbers are drawn. You can choose your lottery numbers or you can go with the ‘quick pick’ option that allows a computer to generate random numbers on your behalf.

After the changes were put into effect in October 28, 2017, there is also a ‘Just the Jackpot’ ticket option available in some states. This option provides you with two tickets for a cost of $3, but these tickets can only be used for winning jackpots and don’t apply to other prizes. If you want to play online learn more in the following link: Lottosend - How to Buy Mega Millions Tickets Online from anywhere in the world.

Current Draw

The Mega Millions draw is conducted twice a week, on Tuesday and Friday at 23:00 EST. The last draw was conducted on Tuesday night, 2nd of October, 2018. The numbers drawn were 2, 22, 29, 31 and 34, which are the white balls and the gold Mega Ball was 1. However, there was no ticket match, which meant that the jackpot for the next draw, which is scheduled for Friday, October 5th, 2018, just reached $405,000,000. This is the fourth time this year that the jackpot has managed to surpass $400 million. The current jackpot’s cash payment would amount to $235 million. If it is won at this level, this would become the eighth largest prize in the history of Mega Millions.

This amount is more than double the largest jackpot to be won in the month of October, which has been a challenging month for producing a top prize winner historically. In the 16 years that Mega Millions draw has been held, the jackpot has only been awarded 12 times in the month of October. The largest prize that was claimed in this month was on October 16th, 2009, and it was a sum of $200 million. While the jackpot has rolled over, four white balls and the Mega Ball was matched by thirty tickets for the $10,000 prize.

Six of these tickets are valued at $30,000 each because they went for the Multiplier option, which was 3x in Tuesday’s draw. In the drawing on October 2nd, the total number of winning tickets was about 1,001,138 at all prize levels. The last Mega Millions jackpot was won on July 24th, and since then, 12 million winning tickets have been given out at all prize levels, 18 of which were worth $1 million and more. The last Mega Millions jackpot was worth a massive $543 million that was awarded on July 24 to a California office pool of 11 coworkers. This is the third largest prize in the history of the Mega Millions.

Three other jackpots have been paid out this year. The first one was paid out on 5th January and was worth $451 million, the second on March 30th worth $533 million and the third on May 4th worth $142 million.

To win this week’s $405 million jackpot, you have to match the five white balls and one Mega Ball and you can change your entire life. Tickets for the draw can be bought up to 15 minutes before the draw on October 5th.