CNN
—
Friday the 13th can be one’s lucky day. Mega Millions Jackpot Hits $1.35 Billion – The Second largest in lottery history – For the Friday drawing set.
The jackpot jumped to $1.1 billion after Tuesday night’s drawing, when no winner took home the lottery’s top prize. said in a press release Wednesday.
The estimated jackpot ($707.9 million in cash) was surpassed only by the $1.537 billion won in South Carolina in 2018, the lottery said.
“Now at $1.35 billion, the Mega Millions jackpot advances to become the second-highest Mega Millions jackpot in history,” the lottery said. said. “Our member lotteries raise funds for many good causes, from education to conservation projects. We are proud to support these efforts.”
Mega Millions’ biggest jackpot hit the billion dollar mark almost three months after the winning ticket was not drawn.
MegaMillions said the last jackpot won $502 million on Oct. 14, when there were two winning tickets from California and Florida. Since then, more than 33 million winning tickets have been sold, with 68 players taking home $1 million or more, the lottery added.
Six previous jackpots have been won on Friday the 13th — four of which were in Michigan, the release said. Friday the 13th prizes have been won in New York, Ohio and Rhode Island.
Mona Ravel owns a 7-Eleven in Fort Myers, Florida, where one of two winning Mega Millions tickets was sold in October 2022 with a jackpot of nearly half a billion dollars. The area hit hard by Hurricane Ian sold out the lucky ticket within a month.
She can’t say whether her store is lucky or not, but she tells CNN that one of her customers won $50,000 a few weeks ago and another won $1,000 last week. He hopes the luck continues with Friday night’s Mega Millions drawing. He told CNN that lottery ticket sales have been steady at his store this week, and he expects a lot of last-minute lottery customers to visit his store as 11 p.m. approaches.
Mega Millions is played in 45 states, including the District of Columbia and the US Virgin Islands.
“Friend of animals everywhere. Coffee maven. Professional food trailblazer. Twitter buff.”