1 winning ticket for the $1.35B Mega Millions jackpot
NEW YORK (WABC) -- A single ticket-holder in Maine will be celebrating a very happy new year after that ticket is the only one to match all six numbers drawn in Friday night's Mega Millions drawing.
The prize is an estimated $1.35 billion ($724.6 million cash), which is the second-largest jackpot in the history of the game!
The numbers drawn late Friday night were: 30, 43, 45, 46, 61 and gold Mega Ball 14.
Up in Maine, the owner of "Hometown Gas and Grill" in Lebanon is anxious to see who bought the lucky ticket from his store.
"Your wheels start turning. Once I got the news from the lottery commission early this morning. Right after, I checked my own tickets. I'm excited to find out who it is. Hopefully it's a local who can sure put it to good use," Fred Cotreau said.
Even if you weren't that one winning ticket-holder, don't throw your tickets out just yet. Tickets worth $1 million were sold in Manhattan, Long Island City, and other areas of New York.
The jackpot had been rolling since it was last won on October 14, when a $502 million prize was shared by winning tickets in California and Florida.
This 26-drawing jackpot run ends with a bang, with 7,072,832 winning tickets across all nine prize tiers in the January 13 drawing alone, including the jackpot-winning ticket. Fourteen tickets matched all five white balls to win the game's second-tier prize of $1 million. Four were sold in New York, two in California, and one each in Florida, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Texas.
For matching four white balls plus the Mega Ball, 164 tickets have a third-tier win. Of those, 27 included the optional Megaplier (available in most states with an extra $1 purchase), which was 2X on Friday night; they are worth $20,000 each. The remaining 137 second-tier winning tickets take home the standard $10,000 prize.
The chances of winning a Mega Millions drawing are slim at one in nearly 303 million.
Friday night's jackpot win is the seventh on a Friday the 13th since the game began in 2002, and the first on such a day since October 2017.
Michigan has been particularly lucky with Mega Millions jackpots on Friday the 13th, winning four of them (June 2008, May 2011, June 2014 and October 2017). That 2017 jackpot was shared with a winner in Rhode Island. Other jackpots on Friday the 13th have been won in New York (March 2009) and Ohio (November 2015). None of them, however, came close in size to the estimated $1.35 billion won this time.
Here is a look at the 10 largest U.S. jackpots that have been won and the states where the winning tickets were sold:
1. $2.04 billion, Powerball, Nov. 8, 2022 (one ticket, from California)
2. $1.586 billion, Powerball, Jan. 13, 2016 (three tickets, from California, Florida, Tennessee)
3. $1.537 billion, Mega Millions, Oct. 23, 2018 (one ticket, from South Carolina)
4. $1.35 billion, Mega Millions, Jan. 13, 2023 (one ticket from Maine)
5. $1.337 billion, Mega Millions, July 29, 2022 (one ticket, from Illinois)
6. $1.05 billion, Mega Millions, Jan. 22, 2021 (one ticket, from Michigan)
7. $768.4 million, Powerball, March 27, 2019 (one ticket, from Wisconsin)
8. $758.7 million, Powerball, Aug. 23, 2017 (one ticket, from Massachusetts)
9. $731.1 million, Powerball, Jan. 20, 2021 (one ticket, from Maryland)
10. $699.8 million, Powerball, Oct. 4, 2021 (one ticket, from California)
RELATED: Here's what you could buy if you win
The credit for the recent big prizes is actually due to math -- and more difficult odds.
In the fall of 2017, lottery officials approved changes to Mega Millions that significantly lengthened the odds from one in 258.9 million to one in 302.6 million. They made similar changes to Powerball in October 2015, worsening the odds from one in 175.2 million to one in 292.2 million.
The idea was that by making jackpots less common, ticket revenue could build up week after week, creating giant prizes that would attract attention and pull in more players who had grown blasé about $100 million or $200 million top prizes.
In August 2021, Powerball also added a third weekly drawing, which enabled the jackpot to roll over and grow even more quickly as people had more chances to play, and lose. Mega Millions has stuck with the two weekly drawings.
Thanks to those moves, nine of the top 10 largest lottery prizes have been won since 2017.
Mega Millions is played in 45 states as well as Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Powerball drawings are also streamed here on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday at 10:59 p.m.
Mega Millions drawings are streamed on Tuesday and Friday at 11:00 p.m.
The New York Lottery is North America's largest and most profitable, contributing billions of dollars to help support education in New York State.
Revenue is distributed to local school districts by the same statutory formula used to distribute other state aid to education. According to the New York lottery, the formula takes into account both a school district's size and its income level; larger, lower-income school districts receive proportionately larger shares of Lottery school funding.
For more information about the New York lottery and to see lottery results, please visit nylottery.ny.gov..
New Yorkers struggling with a gambling addiction, or who know someone who is, can find help by calling the State's toll-free, confidential HOPEline at 1-877-8-HOPENY (1-877-846-7369) or by texting HOPENY (467369). Standard text rates may apply.
----------
* Get Eyewitness News Delivered
* Download the abc7NY app for breaking news alerts
Submit a tip or story idea to Eyewitness News
Have a breaking news tip or an idea for a story we should cover? Send it to Eyewitness News using the form below. If attaching a video or photo, terms of use apply.
