WASHINGTON — The holiday shopping season — for Mega Millions lottery ticket buyers, at least — is ramping up as officials say the estimated jackpot for Tuesday night's drawing has surpassed half a billion dollars.
As of late Monday, lottery officials estimate Tuesday's prize at $565 million — or more than $293 million if delivered in cash — after there were no lucky winners holding a ticket that matched all six numbers in the last drawing held on Friday.
Tuesday's drawing will be held at 11 p.m. EST.
Players must match all five numbers and the gold Mega Ball number to win the jackpot. Players face astronomical odds for a jackpot win: 1 in 302.5 million.
One player in California and another in Illinois won $1 million in Friday's drawing by matching all five numbers but not the Mega Ball. It was a big night for smaller wins: 31 people will take home $10,000 and three people hit the Megaplier to win $40,000.
If the jackpot is won during the next drawing on Tuesday, Dec. 27, it would be the sixth largest prize in the history of the game.
Tickets sold in California and Florida for an Oct. 14 drawing shared the last Mega Millions jackpot of $502 million. The lottery's top prize has been building anew over 20 drawings held since then.
The country has seen a record-setting year for lottery games, with multiple huge jackpots for both Mega Millions and Powerball.
After months of hype, a single Powerball ticket in California won the record-setting $2.04 billion jackpot in November. The winners have not yet come forward or been identified. California law requires winners to come forward publicly, but they have a year to do so.
Over the summer, a near-record $1.377 billion Mega Millions jackpot had Americans in a lottery frenzy in July. A winner in Illinois eventually put the run to an end and matched all six numbers to take home the grand prize. Two people came forward to claim it, but chose to stay anonymous, something that is allowed in Illinois but not every state.
In October, the jackpot climbed again to nearly half-a-billion dollars. Two ticket-holders in California and Florida matched all six Mega Millions numbers, splitting an estimated prize of $494 million between the two of them.