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Tonight is the Mega Millions drawing for Friday, July 20, 2018, reaching an estimated $433 million. Do we know yet if anyone won the Mega Millions jackpot? It looks like no one won tonight’s Mega Millions. The next jackpot drawing will be Tuesday, July 24, for an estimated $493 million. It typically takes about two hours from the time of the drawing to find out. The drawing was at 11 p.m. Eastern and the results were announced right around 1 a.m. Eastern.
The winning numbers for tonight were 1-14-30-44-62 and a Mega Ball of 1.
The July 20 jackpot may not be the largest jackpot in Mega Millions’ history, but it’s close. The last large jackpot was in late March when the jackpot was the fourth largest in Mega Millions history, exceeding $500 million. Tonight wasn’t quite that large. If someone wins tonight, they can either choose the $433 million jackpot or the cash option of $260 million.
Some people on Twitter are already joking about not winning the jackpot.
Going to go cash in my $433 million #MegaMillions ticket tomorrow.
Whenever someone wins the main jackpot, the Mega Millions website updates to show that the jackpot is starting over at $40 million. It typically takes Mega Millions about two hours to process all the tickets and announce if someone won. But sometimes it takes longer. Before it was announced that someone won the $521 million jackpot in late March, it actually took all night and an official announcement wasn’t made until the next morning. But that’s highly unusual.
If someone won tonight, the cash value option would have been worth $226 million.
Since Mega Millions changed the jackpot rules in October 2017, we can expect a better chance that the jackpots will get bigger and bigger and break more records over time. The largest jackpots in history were: #1) $656 million in March 2012; #2.) $648 million in December 2013; #3.) $536 million in July 2016; and #4.) $521 million in March 2018, and #5.) $451 million in January 2018. This means that today’s jackpot is slowly getting closer to being the fifth largest, but it won’t exceed the jackpot for January 2018.
Even when a winner is eventually announced, whether it’s for tonight’s jackpot or another night, it could still take a while before we find out their identity (if ever.) In New Jersey, for example, players have a year to claim their prize from the date of the drawing. The winner may also be required to appear at a news conference or other promotional event, or to have their image used on social media without any additional consent.
And there’s always a chance a winner might stay anonymous, thanks to a recent Powerball jackpot winner in New Hampshire. Although New Hampshire rules allow people who win games like Powerball to take up to a one year from the draw date to claim their prize, New Hampshire law also requires the winner’s name, town, and amount won be available for public information. The winner was able to file a lawsuit and stay anonymous while claiming the winnings through an anonymous trust, even though they had originally signed their winning ticket with their name. Although that court’s ruling isn’t binding in other states, it means that there’s at least a chance that a winner might file a similar lawsuit and win for future jackpots.
The odds of winning Mega Millions are 1 in 302.6 million, which are actually less than the odds of winning the Powerball, which is 1 in 292.2 million. Mega Millions recently changed its rules in October 2017, making the odds of winning the big jackpot lower (they used to be 1 in 258.9 million.) On October 28, 2017, Mega Millions increased the cost of buying a ticket from $1 to $2. They increased the starting jackpot to $40 million, and changed the play structure. Instead of picking five numbers out of 75 and 1 number out of 15, players now pick five numbers from 1 to 70 and and one number from 1 to 25.
In order to win the jackpot, you’d need to match all five white balls and the yellow Mega ball. If you match all five white numbers only, you’ll win $1 million (and more if you’re using a Mega plier option.) If you match 4 white and the yellow, you’ll win $10,000. If you match 4 white only, you’ll win $500. If you match 3 white and 1 yellow, you’ll win $200. If you match 3 white only or if you match 2 white and 1 yellow, you’ll win $10. If you match one white and one yellow, you’ll win $4. If you only match the yellow, you’ll win $2. But if you only match one white ball, you won’t win anything.