New Jersey Ticket Wins $1.13 Billion Mega Millions Jackpot
The first Mega Millions jackpot winner of 2024 has been announced
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A stock image of a Mega Millions ticket.A New Jersey Mega Millions player has won the first jackpot of 2024!
The ticket holder, who hasn't yet been named, won an estimated prize of $1.13 billion in annual payments over 29 years, before taxes — or a $537.5 million cash lump sum — after matching all six numbers drawn Tuesday night, making it the fifth-largest prize in the game's history.
The new billionaire matched the white balls 7, 11, 22, 29, and 38, as well as the gold Mega Ball 4, the Mega Millions website confirmed on Wednesday morning. The odds of winning the jackpot are one in 302,575,350.
There have been 31 drawings since the jackpot was last won on December 8 when two winning tickets were produced in California.
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A billboard showing the Mega Millions amount in Miami, Florida.Related: Woman Wins $25K a Year for Life Prize Months After Having a Dream That She’d Win the Lottery
“Congratulations to the New Jersey Lottery for selling a jackpot-winning ticket in Tuesday’s $1.13 billion Mega Millions drawing,” Georgia Lottery President and CEO, Gretchen Corbin, lead director of the Mega Millions Consortium, said. “We celebrate our new jackpot winner, as well as all the prizes won and dollars raised for good causes during this exciting jackpot run."
The website stated that because jackpots are based on actual sales, the official winning ticket amount will be finalized after sales from all 47 participating jurisdictions have been confirmed on Wednesday morning.
More than 29.9 million winning tickets with prize levels ranging from $2 up to $4 million, including 56 second-tier prizes of $1 million or more, were produced in the latest jackpot run before the March 26 winner was announced.
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The jackpot for Friday's draw has now been reset to its current starting value of $20 million ($9.5 million cash).
Last year, a ticket holder in Florida won the $1.6 billion jackpot, making it the largest winnings seen in a Mega Millions draw, according to the game's website.
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