Americans flocked to buy Mega Millions tickets ahead of Friday night’s drawing, which was the third largest jackpot in the game’s history at $660million.
No one has won the coveted reward in the last 27 consecutive drawings and those hoping to win Friday’s big payout had to beat the unlikely odds of being 1 in 302million, according to Fox 6 Milwaukee.
If a lucky player wins Friday night and chooses the cash option, they would take home around $388million.
Either tonight or in the future, Michigan state lottery player relations manager Jake Harris recommends jackpot winners to ‘take your time’ collecting the prize and potentially contacting a lawyer or financial advisor and make sure ‘your ducks in a row,’ he told WGNTV.
He also recommends entering into a work or family pool for future drawings, ‘because you don’t want to be the one left working in your group if it does happen to win and you didn’t pay for your ticket that week.’
Friday night’s drawing was the ninth biggest jackpot overall.
The Mega Millions jackpot hit $660million before Friday’s 11pm drawing, leaving players with a 1 in 302millionth chance of winning
It’s the third largest jackpot for the game and ninth largest overall
Since the last winner won the jackpot on April 15, 17.9million others have won prizes from all levels, including 29 worth $1million or more, Mega Millions said in a statement.
The last winner was from Tennessee and won $20million, The biggest jackpot winner so far this year happened in California on January 28, pulling in at $426million. In addition, a New Yorker won $128million in March and someone from Minnesota won $110million on April 12.
Many gamblers have taken to social media to post about their excitement, with one person joking: ‘If this is the last time you hear from me, this is why.’
Another got in on the excitement of such a harsh odd, adding in three rows of praying hands emojis for luck, writing: ‘My Mega Millions pool has a 1 in 1M odds to win tonight.’
Fox 9 News’ Morning Anchor Kelly O’Connell simply wrote: ‘Please please please please please.’
Others told Fox 9 Milwaukee that they are going to use their ‘mental powers’ to win tonight.
Many flocked to social media to manifest their good luck and prayed they’d win the multimillion dollar jackpot
‘You have to manifest it,’ Roslyn Taylor told the outlet. ‘I’m going to win that money.’
She also said she would ‘love to donate it to get some of these kids off the street and build some recreational centers.’
Richard Carpenter told the outlet he just wanted to ‘pay my bills,’ but said he wouldn’t ‘tell nobody if I win, though.’
Friday’s winning numbers are: 14 40 60 64 66 MB 16