How the Mega Millions jackpot works

The Mega Millions jackpot has risen to $1.02 billion after no ticket matched all six winning numbers in Tuesday night’s drawing, according to the lottery.

According to the Mega Millions website, if a winning ticket is drawn on Friday, the $1.02 billion jackpot will be the third largest in the game’s 20-year history.

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How to buy a ticket?

Mega Millions is available in 45 states. Players may purchase as many $2 tickets as they wish. You must choose five numbers between 1 and 70 and the sixth number between 1 and 25 for each ticket (or, you can let the lottery folks generate the numbers for you). The jackpot is awarded to the person (or people) who correctly select all six numbers.

Each participating state has its own set of rules for claiming a reward. In fact, the time you have from the date the numbers were drawn to file your claim can range from 90 days to a year.

How does the taxing work?

Federal income tax must be paid on any lottery winnings over $1 billion. To begin with, 24 percent of your winnings are withheld, according to the IRS website. Since you only pay taxes on the amount you receive in a given year, how much that is depends on whether you chose the cash or annuity option.

If you withdraw the money all at once, which is roughly $602.5 million, $144.6 million would be deducted from the top, leaving you with $457.9 million.

How much can you win?

Every Mega Millions jackpot winner has the choice between taking their money all at once in a lump sum or splitting it up over the course of 30 years. The cash alternative for the $1.02 billion jackpot is $602.5 million.

Instead, if you chose the annuity option, you could receive a first payment of about $15.3 million. Then, each one after that goes up by 5%. If you pass away before receiving all of the yearly payments, your heirs will receive the balance.

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The largest Mega Millions jackpot was $1.537 billion on October 23, 2018, for a ticket purchased in South Carolina. On January 22, 2021, a quartet of players in Michigan took home a $1.05 billion jackpot.

According to Kilbane, 62 million requests were made to the Mega Millions website in a 24-hour period. The Mega Millions website received so much traffic on Tuesday night that it briefly went down after the 11 p.m. drawing, though things appeared to get better as traffic decreased.

This year, the Mega Millions jackpots in Tennessee, California, New York, and Minnesota have all been won four times.