Winner of next Mega Millions drawing could get nearly $1B

Jan. 4—The winner of the Mega Millions drawing on Friday could win up to $940 million, leading to the fourth largest jackpots in history.

The $940 million jackpot is for a winner who chooses to be paid through an annuity over 29 years. But nearly all winners opt for a cash payout, which for Friday night's drawing would be an estimated $483.5 million — still a life-changing sum for many people.

Thomas Reginald bought a ticket at Vinny's Carry Out in Moraine Wednesday morning, and said he always plays Mega Millions. He's played every day for about 20 to 30 years, he said.

Reginald said he's playing with the hopes to win a large sum of money.

"You can't buy a car or pay off a house with $20, $30," he said.

He said he's lost more than he won. But Reginald said he has fun playing, and he's not going to win unless he plays, he pointed out.

"Over the years, you're always going to lose more than you win, unless you get the Mega Millions (winners)," he said.

The jackpot has only passed $700 million three other times, and each of those prizes eventually surpassed $1 billion before a winner was drawn, according to a Mega Millions news release. The last time a draw that size happened was a $1.05 billion pot on Jan. 22, 2021.

According to Mega Millions, players have a 1 in 24 chance of winning some sort of prize when they play ranging from $2 to the jackpot.

Thomas Tanner, another Vinny's patron, said he was buying his morning snacks and lottery tickets. While he said he thought his chances were low, he said it's worth it to play, win or lose. He buys the same five lines with the same numbers every time the jackpot goes over $1 million.

"It's fun to me," Tanner said. "And you win a few dollars from time to time."

Ohio lottery spokeswoman Mary Kilbane said last week that the increasingly large jackpots have come after longer odds of winning. When people don't win week after week, the prizes get larger.

In the format Mega Millions used from 2013-17, players had to correctly pick five regular numbers from 75 options, plus one mega ball of 15 choices, to win the jackpot. The odds of winning were one in 258.9 million.

In late 2017, the format changed to pick five numbers out of 70 and one mega ball of 25. Now the odds of winning a Mega Millions jackpot are one in 302.6 million, according to the Associated Press. That's almost a one-in-America shot, as the U.S. population is just over 330 million.

But when lottery jackpots go up, so does interest in buying a ticket. Kilbane said ticket sales go up when the lottery jackpot went up.

Ohio uses profits from the Ohio Lottery Commission to fund education. Lottery officials said last fiscal year, the Ohio Lottery contributed $1.4 billion to the Lottery Profits Education Fund, which supports K-12 education in Ohio.

Mega Millions is in 47 U.S. jurisdictions, and all participating state lotteries have an agreement to sell the game. Each local jurisdiction makes rules about lottery sales and how the payouts are done.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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