Mega Millions jackpot soars to fourth largest prize in the US

(WJW) — Anticipation is building and so is the Mega Millions jackpot.

The jackpot rolled again on Friday night after no ticket matched all six numbers drawn: 14, 40, 60, 64 and 66, plus the gold Mega Ball 16. The top prize has now soared to $790 million with a cash option of $464.4 million.

There were still millions of winners in Friday night’s drawing – a total of 3,428,412 winning tickets at all prize levels. Four tickets matched the five white balls to win the game’s second prize. Three of them are worth $3 million each because they included the optional Megaplier, which can increase a non-jackpot prize by 2, 3, 4, or 5 times in participating states. They were sold in Delaware, New Jersey and New York.

The remaining Match 5 winning ticket, worth $1 million, was sold in Virginia.

There have been only three lottery jackpots ever won – in any game – at a higher level than next Tuesday’s estimated prize of $790 million. Two were Mega Millions jackpots – $1.537 billion won in South Carolina in 2018 and $1.050 billion won in Michigan in 2021.

The current world record lottery prize is a $1.586 billion Powerball jackpot won on January 13, 2016.

Here are the top Mega Millions jackpots to date:

The next drawing is Tuesday, July 26 at 11 p.m. ET.

Mega Millions tickets are $2 apiece.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.