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CNN
—
Friday the 13th might end up being someone’s lucky day. The Mega Millions jackpot has reached an estimated $1.35 billion – the second-largest in the lottery’s history – for the drawing set on Friday.
The jackpot soared from $1.1 billion after Tuesday night’s drawing when no winner snagged the big prize, the lottery said in a news release Wednesday.
The estimated jackpot ($707.9 million in cash) is surpassed only by the lottery’s record of $1.537 billion won in South Carolina in 2018, the lottery said.
“Now at $1.35 billion, the Mega Millions jackpot is moving up and making history as the second highest Mega Millions jackpot ever,” the lottery said. “Our member lotteries raise funds for many good causes, ranging from education to conservation programs. We’re proud to support these efforts.”
The Mega Millions’ massive jackpot topped the billion-dollar mark after nearly three months without a winning ticket drawn.
The last jackpot was won at $502 million on October 14, when there were two winning tickets from California and Florida, the Mega Millions said. Since then, more than 33 million winning tickets have been sold, including 68 players who took home $1 million or more, the lottery added.
There have been six previous jackpots won on Friday the 13th – and four of them were in Michigan, the release said. Prizes have also been won on Friday the 13th in New York, Ohio and Rhode Island.
Mona Rawal owns the 7-Eleven in Fort Myers, Florida, where in October 2022 one of the two winning Mega Millions tickets was sold with a jackpot of nearly half a billion dollars. The lucky ticket sale came less than a month after the area was hard hit by Hurricane Ian.
She can’t say if her store is lucky or not but tells CNN that one of her customers won $50,000 a few weeks ago and another won $1,000 last week. She hopes that luck continues with the Mega Millions drawing Friday night. Lottery ticket sales have been steady this week at her store, she told CNN, and she expects lots of last-minute lottery customers to head to her store as the 11 p.m. drawing nears.
Jim Frye, who plays the Powerball and Mega Millions every week but has never won “anything big,” said he played at Rawal’s 7-Eleven because he heard about the winning ticket in October.
“I say you can’t win if you don’t play, that’s my motto, and I’ve been playing for a long time,” Frye told CNN. “Let’s wait to see if I win first and then I’ll decide what I’m going to do with it. It’ll help a lot of people that’s for sure.”
Mega Millions is played in 45 states, along with the District of Columbia and the US Virgin Islands.
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