Jackpot of over $1.22 billion has owner

The Mega Millions jackpot winning ticket matched the white balls 3, 7, 37, 49, 55 and the gold Mega Ball 6. The identity of the winner has not yet been announced.

The winning ticket for the $1.22 billion Mega Millions jackpot was sold in California and the winner will take home the fifth-largest lottery prize ever in the United States. Specifically, the winning ticket that matched all six numbers in the drawing on the night of December 27 was sold at the Circle K at 3505 Rhonda Road in Cottonwood, Shasta County, California.

After three months without a winner, the jackpot has steadily increased and reached $1.22 billion just before the draw on the evening of December 27.

The winner can choose to receive the money in installments over 29 years. However, most winners choose to receive the money all at once. With the current prize, after deducting related expenses, the jackpot winner will only receive a total of about $549.7 million immediately. However, this is still a huge amount of money that many people dream of.

According to Mega Millions, the odds of winning the jackpot were 1 in 302,575,350 before last night's drawing. However, players across the country continued to try to get at least one new ticket in hopes of changing their lives before the new year 2025. The last time a Mega Millions player won the jackpot was on September 10, 2024, worth $810 million.

The largest Mega Millions jackpot ever was $1.6 billion, sold in Florida in August 2023. Meanwhile, the two largest Powerball jackpots in the US were even higher.

Mega Millions and Powerball tickets are sold in Washington, DC, 45 states and the US Virgin Islands. Powerball is also sold in Puerto Rico.