JACKPOT! Texas Lottery Confirms $344,000,000 Mega Millions Winner

The jackpot for the next Mega Millions lottery drawing will be down to $20 million on Friday, March 28. That's because someone matched all six winning numbers on Tuesday's drawing and won $344 million.

Casey's General Store, located in Cortland, Illinois, sold the winning ticket, which had the six winning numbers (1-5-17-39-62, and the Mega Ball was 8).

Cortland is about an hour away from Downtown Chicago, but only 4500 residents live there, and it has the feel of a small town nestled in the midst of farmland.

If the winner chooses the lump sum cash payout, it will be worth an estimated $159.1 million. That's enough to buy a new $75,000 vehicle every week for the next 40 years (over 2100 vehicles). Of course, that's not figuring out how much money goes to taxes, so the winner may just have to settle for about 1300 new vehicles over the next 40 years.

The Billion Dollar Winners of Mega Millions

This Mega Millions jackpot didn't punch into the billion-dollar stratosphere, but Mega Millions is the only lottery game that has produced seven jackpot wins exceeding $1 billion – all in different states.

South Carolina was the first in 2018, followed by Michigan in 2021, Illinois in 2022, Maine and Florida in 2023, New Jersey last March California in December. The Florida prize on August 8, 2023, is the game’s current record jackpot at $1.602 billion.

Powerball Jackpot

The current Powerball jackpot stands at $484 million, with an estimated lump sum cash equivalent of $228.1 million. The next Powerball drawing will take place on Wednesday, March 26.

Remember to play responsibly, the odds of winning the top prize are around 1 in 300,000,000.