No One Won the Jan. 19 Mega Millions: Jackpot Is Now $970 Million

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No one won the $865 million Mega Millions lottery on January 19, and now the lottery will grow to $970 million on Friday, January 22. Here are more details about what is happening with the Mega Millions lottery.


No One Won the Jackpot for the $865 Million Mega Millions

It generally takes at least two hours after the Mega Millions drawing to find out if anyone won the Mega Millions jackpot, abut results were known sooner than that on January 19, which is highly unusual for the lottery. The larger the jackpot becomes, the longer it takes to get in the results because more tickets were sold that need to be processed, but the fact that no one won was revealed much sooner on January 19 than it was on January 15.

Mega Millions

The Mega Millions winning numbers for January 19 were 10 – 19 – 26 – 28 – 50 and a Mega ball of 16, as shown in the screenshot above.

The drawing is at 11 p.m. Eastern (10 p.m. Central/9 p.m. Mountain/8 p.m. Pacific) on Tuesdays and Fridays. It’s typically not until after 1 a.m. Eastern when we know if anyone won, but this time we knew by 12:45 a.m. Eastern.

For example, when the jackpot was $432 million on January 5, we still didn’t know that no one had won by 1 a.m. Eastern. Then for January 15 when the jackpot was much higher, the results weren’t known until about 2 a.m. Eastern. But for January 19, we knew the results by 12:45 a.m. Eastern.


Here Are Some of the Non-Jackpot Winning Results

Although no one won the jackpot, we do know that two people from Florida Matched 5 + the Megaplier. This means the Match 5 alone was worth $1 million, and then the Megaplier increased that even more to $2 million.

Players from California, Florida, Illinois, Kansas, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, Washington, and two from New Jersey were Match 5 winners ($1 million) without a Megaplier.

There were also 139 people who won $10,000 (15 with Megapliers that increased the winnings to $20,000). There were nearly 4,000 who matched four white balls for $500 (including 658 who had Megapliers).


How to Stay Updated on Whether Anyone Won for January 19

How can you stay updated to know if someone won during any jackpot drawing? The easiest way is by watching the Mega Millions jackpot website.

Mega Millions will update its official website to show the jackpot is starting over at $20 million if at least one person wins the jackpot tonight. The starting pot is normally $40 million, but it was lowered to $20 million in 2020 because of the pandemic.

If we still don’t know if anyone won, then Mega Millions’ website will simply read “Pending” under the jackpot amount.

If no one wins the jackpot, then Mega Millions’ website will be updated to reflect an amount higher than the previous estimate.


How Much Is Tonight’s Jackpot Worth?

The January 19 jackpot was worth $865 million, and that’s for the sum you’ll get if you take the annuity option. The winnings would be spread out over 30 multimillion-dollar annual payments for 29 years, starting with one immediate payment. Each year’s payment is 5% bigger than the previous one, to help protect against inflation.

It’s worth noting that because of taxes, you’ll take home less than that even if you’re the only jackpot winner. A big chunk of taxes is taken at the federal level, but another chunk is taken at the state level in some locations. Lottery Critic offers a Mega Millions Payout Calculator to help you determine what you’d take home if you won.

According to USA Mega’s jackpot analysis page,  you’ll lose 24% of your gross prize to federal income taxes, plus an additional percentage, leaving you with a 37% final federal income tax rate.

So if you’re taking 30 average annual payments, you’ll take home about $28.83 million a year in 30 average annual payments before taxes, leaving you with just $18.2 million after taxes, according to USA Mega’s estimates. (This doesn’t account for yearly changes due to inflation.) If you take a lump sum, you’ll lose a total of $153.3 million upfront plus another $83 million from additional federal taxes, for a total of $402.479 million take-home after just federal taxes alone.

All that increases if you’re in a state that charges state taxes on lottery winnings. In Iowa, for example, there’s a 5% tax rate plus additional state taxes adding up to 8.53% total. This means you’d average a net of $15.7 million take home per year with an annuity, or $347.99 million take-home after taxes with a lump-sum payout.

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. In order to win the jackpot, you’d need to match all five white balls and the yellow Mega ball.

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