Mega Millions Numbers: Did Anyone Win the Jan. 22 Jackpot?

Getty Mega Millions lottery tickets are sold at a 7-Eleven store in the Loop on January 22, 2021 in Chicago, Illinois.

Did anyone win tonight’s $1 billion Mega Millions lottery for January 22? We now know that yes, someone won the $1 billion-dollar jackpot and now the jackpot is going to start over at $20 million. Here are all the details.

Someone in Michigan Won the $1 Billion Jackpot

MegaMillions.com

Tonight’s winning numbers were: 4 – 26 – 42 – 50 – 60 with a yellow Mega ball of 24. The Megaplier was 2X.

Typically, it takes about two hours to find out if anyone won a Mega Millions jackpot as large as tonight’s was. We knew the results shortly before 1 a.m. Eastern.

According to Mega Millions’ webpage, the jackpot winner is from Michigan.

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, and that was right around when we found out this week. 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, which was close to when we found out the results for January 22.

Other People Who Won on January 22

MMPB App

Mega Millions has updated its official website to show the jackpot is starting over at $20 million after someone walked away with the $1 billion jackpot.

There were other winners too. In six states, 10 players were Match 5 winners, walking away with $1 million. These were two players in Florida, two in New York, one in Maryland, one in Missouri, one in Pennsylvania, and one in New Jersey.

Two players were Match 5 Megaplier winners, meaning they will get $2 million. These players were in North Carolina and Virginia.

In addition, 187 people won $10,000, with 31 winning $20,000 thanks to the Megaplier. And 4,575 people won $500, plus 654 won $1,000 thanks to the Megaplier. The prizes after that are worth $200 or less and had thousands of winners too.

LotteryHub

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.

How Much Is Tonight’s Jackpot Worth?

The January 22 jackpot is worth $1 billion, which is 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.

Because of taxes, however, you’ll take home a lot less than $1 billion. First, taxes will be taken out at the federal level. If your state also has an income tax, then even more taxes will be taken out at the state level. 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 $33.33 million a year in 30 average annual payments before taxes, leaving you with $21.035 million after taxes, according to USA Mega’s estimates. After 30 payments, that would total $583.077 million. (This doesn’t account for yearly changes due to inflation.)

If you take a lump sum (which is $739.6 million, not $1 billion), then you’ll lose a total of $177.504 million upfront plus another $96.112 million from additional federal taxes, for a total of $465.983 million take-home after just federal taxes alone. Then depending on your state, you’ll lose even more than that. You can see a breakdown of what you’ll take home per state in Heavy’s story here.