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Mega Millions players unlucky on Friday the 13th, jackpot soars for next drawing

Jackpot grows to $740 million for Tuesday's drawing.
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No one matched all six numbers in Friday's Mega Millions drawing, which had a jackpot of $670 million. With no one claiming Tuesday's jackpot, Mega Millions' next drawing will have a top prize of $740 million.

Friday's drawing had white balls 36, 43, 52, 58 and 65, plus the gold Mega Ball 16. Although no one claimed the top prize, there were a total of 1,256,298 winning tickets for prizes ranging from $2 to $3 million. Four players hit all five white balls, winning prizes of at least $1 million.

Tuesday's drawing will be the eighth largest in the lottery's history. The jackpot has steadily grown since September, when a winning ticket worth $810 million was sold in Texas. The Sept. 10, 2024, drawing marked the seventh largest in the history of Mega Millions.

If someone wins Tuesday's top prize, they can choose $740 million paid over 29 years or a one-time lump sum of $317.8 million.

The lottery launched in 1996 with 1-in-52.9-million odds. Drawings then had 50 white balls and 25 gold balls. By 2013, the lottery had 1-in-258-million odds by having 75 white balls and 15 gold balls.

In 2017, Mega Millions actually reduced the number of white balls — a first among multi-state lotteries — to 70, but increased the number of gold balls to 25. This has made Mega Millions the toughest lottery to win with 1-in-302-million odds.

Tickets are $2 each. The odds of winning a smaller prize are about 1 in 24.

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Eighteen states allow winners of large lotteries to stay fully anonymous, shielding winners from the attention claiming such a prize can draw.