Mega Millions players dreaming of a green Christmas could be in luck this year.
Lottery officials on Saturday said no tickets matched all six numbers pulled Friday night, which means the pot has swelled from $825 million to nearly $1 billion. It marked the 29th consecutive drawing without a big winner, stretching all the way back to Sept. 10.
“There’s extra magic in the air this holiday season as the Mega Millions jackpot has grown to almost a billion dollars!” the lottery announced. “A massive prize currently estimated at $944 million is on tap for the next drawing on Tuesday, Dec. 24.”
Should a ticketholder match all the numbers pulled on Christmas Eve, they could walk away with a lump-sum cash payout of around $429 million. A win would make them only the third person to nab the jackpot in 2024, marking the fewest won in any single year since the game began.
It would also mark just the second time in the lottery’s 22-year history that a jackpot has been won on Christmas Eve.
“That was in the game’s very first year, yet the $68 million prize won in New York on Dec. 24, 2002, eventually went unclaimed,” according to Mega Millions.
The biggest Mega Millions pot ever, $1.6 billion, was won in August of last year. The winning ticket was purchased in Neptune, Fla.