The Mega Millions top prize has grown again to an estimated $640 million after there was no winner of the lottery’s latest giant jackpot.
Here are the winning numbers drawn Friday: 10-24-48-51-66 Mega Ball: 15 Megaplier: 2x
The estimated $640 million jackpot in the next drawing would only be distributed to a winner who chooses an annuity paid over 29 years. Nearly all grand prize winners opt to take a cash payout, which for Tuesday night’s drawing is an estimated $328 million.
Despite the game’s long odds of 1 in 302.6 million, players continue to purchase tickets as the size of the grand prize grows.
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The last time a Mega Millions player hit the top prize was April 18.
Meanwhile, the Powerball jackpot for Saturday’s drawing has grown to an estimated $875 million — the third-highest. Ticket buyers have a chance at either $875 million paid out in yearly increments or a $441.9 million one-time lump sum before taxes.
Yet the games have raised concerns among some experts. Their abysmal odds — 1 in 292.2 million for Powerball — are designed to build big prizes that draw more players.
The largest Powerball jackpot was $2.04 billion Powerball last November.
But the last time someone won the Powerball jackpot was April 19 for a $252.6 million prize.
Lia Nower, a professor and the director of the Center for Gambling Studies at Rutgers University, said the lottery has historically acted as a regressive tax on the poor, meaning the people that can least afford to lose their money buy the most tickets.
She said her “concern with lottery is really more people who are buying it every day or two or three times a week" as opposed to those who purchase one ticket as the jackpot nears $1 billion.
And those frequent buyers were pouring into a store in Crystal, Minnesota, said clerk Elias Harv.
“Like, it's never been before like this,” Harv said. “They come two to three times a day.”
“Everybody has his own dream," he added.
In a convenience store in the Philadelphia suburb of Ambler, Barbara Green had no illusions she would nab the top prize. But still, she couldn't resist the possibility.
“Everybody has hope, so if I get a little bit, I’m satisfied,” she said, laughing. “I’m not getting the big thing, I know that, but I like to get a little bit of it. Everybody does.”
Mega Millions is played in 45 states as well as in Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands while Powerball is played in the same ones in addition to Puerto Rico.
