No Mega Millions winner, jackpot tops $1B

A massive Mega Millions lottery jackpot ballooned to $1.02 billion after no one matched all six numbers Tuesday night and won the top prize of $830 million.

The new estimated jackpot will be the nation’s fourth-largest lottery prize.

The jackpot has grown so large because no one has matched the game’s six selected numbers since April 15, when a Tennessee player matched all six numbers and snagged a $20 million prize. That’s 29 consecutive drawings without a big winner.

Tuesday’s numbers were: 07-29-60-63-66, Mega Ball: 15. One California ticketholder, sold at the Country Store in Baker, matched five of the six numbers. That ticket is worth $2,912,502, according to the California Lottery.

The $1.02 billion prize is for winners who choose the annuity option, paid annually over 30 years. Most winners opt for the cash option, which for the next drawing Friday night is an estimated $602.5 million.

The odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 302.5 million.

Winless streaks have gone longer in the past, with the record being a 36-roll run that ended Jan. 22, 2021, with a $1.05 billion Mega Millions payout in Michigan. That was the third-largest prize ever won.

The biggest was a gargantuan $1.586 billion Powerball jackpot won in 2016 by three players in California, Florida and Tennessee.

No lotto in Nevada

Mega Millions is played in 45 states as well as Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The game is overseen by state lottery officials.

Lottery tickets are not sold in Nevada.

In recent years, thousands of people have flocked to the Primm Valley Lotto Store at Primm to buy Mega Millions and Powerball lottery tickets. The store is about 45 miles southwest of Las Vegas along Interstate 15 on the Nevada-California border. It is the closest one to the Las Vegas Valley selling the tickets.

Also, various locations in northwest Arizona, including Bullhead City and White Hills, sell Mega Millions tickets.

— The Review-Journal contributed to this report.