Millions of lottery players flocked to outlets to buy tickets ahead of Tuesday’s record Mega Millions jackpot, then waited on pins and needles to learn if they could claim a piece of the $1.6 billion prize.
Here are the winning numbers drawn late Tuesday: 5, 28, 62, 65, 70 and Mega Ball 5. The Megaplier was 3X.
The jackpot has been growing since July, when the $543 million jackpot was won by a California office pool. The new total ranks as the largest Mega Millions jackpot ever, well ahead of the $656 million pot won on March 30, 2012 and shared by three winning tickets.
The $1.6 billion is the estimated amount for those who take the annuity option spread out over 30 payments; the cash option pays out an estimated $913 million all at once. Any amount would be shared if there are multiple winning tickets.
The largest U.S. lottery jackpot ever won was $1.586 billion in Powerball on Jan. 13, 2016.
Read about an even bigger jackpot: ‘El Gordo’ and its $2.4 billion jackpot draw crowds to Spain’s luckiest lottery shop
The Powerball jackpot, meanwhile, has reached an estimated $620 million after there was no winner on Saturday. The next drawing will take place at 10:59 p.m. Eastern time on Wednesday.
The odds of winning Mega Millions are 1 in nearly 303 million, and those for Powerball are about 1 in 292 million. Sadly, you are more likely to die or kill someone while driving 2 miles to buy your Powerball ticket. Or be attacked by a shark.
Put another way, even if every adult in the U.S. purchased just one ticket, each with a different number, there would still be a good chance — about 7% — that no winner emerges at a given drawing and the pot would grow even larger.
Read: Here’s what you should do when you don’t win the Mega Millions jackpot
In both cases, the jackpot is won by correctly picking the numbers on all five white balls drawn (69 choices in Powerball, 70 in Mega Millions) as well as the correct number on the sixth ball (26 red choices in Powerball, 25 gold choices in Mega Millions).
Tickets for each lottery start at $2.
Both the annuity and cash options have tax implications and consequences for any winner’s long-term financial goals.
Financial advisers have plenty to say about what to do with the winnings: for example, these five must-dos after winning the lottery
Also: Why you still shouldn’t buy any lottery tickets
They also have strong views on not wasting money by buying a lot of tickets, given the slim odds. Some of the biggest buyers of what many describe as a voluntary tax are low-income earners, as MarketWatch has reported. Others make the case that investing in the S&P 500 index SPX, -0.55% and Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -0.50% or other longer-term investments are better ways to put your money to work.
And even if you win, life doesn’t always turn into a happily-ever-after story, as this $19 million winner can attest. (Cue wasteful big spending leading to bankruptcy ... and then bank robberies and prison time.)
Now read: Want to win the Powerball? These numbers come up more than others
