For just the fourth time in Mega Millions history, the jackpot has reached a whopping $600 million. The top prize keeps rolling after no ticket matched all six numbers drawn Friday night – the white balls 3, 6, 16, 18 and 58, plus the gold Mega Ball 11. As a result, the estimated jackpot for the drawing next Tuesday, January 12, is $600 million and a cash option of $442.4 million.
The first time the game passed the $600 million threshold was on March 30, 2012, when a $656 million prize was split between winners in Illinois, Kansas and Maryland. At the time, it was a world record for a lotto jackpot game. On December 17, 2013, winners in California and Georgia shared a $648 million jackpot. And on October 23, 2018, an incredible $1.537 billion prize was won in South Carolina – the world’s largest lotto jackpot ever awarded on a single ticket.
Friday night’s drawing produced a total of 2,573,546 winners at all prize levels, including five tickets that matched the five white balls to win the game’s second prize of at least $1 million. They were sold in California, Georgia, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York.
For the second straight draw, a New York second prize included the optional Megaplier (an extra $1 purchase available in most states) so that ticket is worth $2 million after the 2X Megaplier was drawn. For matching the four white balls plus the Mega Ball, 84 tickets won $10,000 each; 11 of those are actually worth $20,000 each because they also included the optional Megaplier.
Since the jackpot was last won in Wisconsin on September 15, there have been more than 21.8 million winning tickets sold at all prize levels, including 32 worth $1 million or more. Next Tuesday’s drawing will be the 34th in the current jackpot roll.
The Mega Millions jackpot was won five times in 2020, with two states getting their first-ever jackpot win in the game: Arizona, which took the largest prize of the year at $414 million on June 9, and Wisconsin, where a lucky winner won $120 million on September 15. Two 2020 jackpots were won in New Jersey: $202 million on February 11 and $123 million on July 24. And on July 31, a California winner took home a $22 million prize.
The top Mega Millions jackpots to date:
| Amount | Date | Winning Tickets |
| $1.537 billion | 10/23/2018 | 1-SC |
| $656 million | 3/30/2012 | 3-IL, KS, MD |
| $648 million | 12/17/2013 | 2-CA, GA |
| $600 million (est) | 1/12/2021 | ? |
| $543 million | 7/24/2018 | 1-CA |
| $536 million | 7/8/2016 | 1-IN |
| $533 million | 3/30/2018 | 1-NJ |
| $522 million | 6/7/2019 | 1-CA |
| $451 million | 1/5/2018 | 1-FL |
| $437 million | 1/1/2019 | 1-NY |
