RELEASE DATE: 3/5/2014
Mega Millions is on a roll, with an estimated jackpot of $270 million ($151 million cash option) for the next drawing on Friday, March 7. California hit a jackpot of another sorts on Tuesday, producing all three of the Match 5 winning tickets for the March 4 draw. The tickets matched the first five numbers (10, 29, 31, 35 and 45) but missed the Mega Ball of 10.
While the jackpot remains elusive, there have been more than 28.3 million individual winners at all levels since the last jackpot win on January 3. Of those, 23 were Match 5 winners, including one $4 million prize due to the inclusion of the optional Megaplier. In total, the game has produced 90 Match 5 winners of $1 million or more since the game was relaunched last October (California winners are paid on a pari-mutuel basis and their prizes may be more or less than $1 million depending on sales).
The $270 million jackpot is the sixth largest Mega Millions prize offered in the past five years, and in the game’s 12-year history, only 10 jackpots have been higher.
The jackpot has been rolling since January 3, when it was hit for $61 million by Bettina “Tina” Still and her son Jonathan, both of Nashville, Tenn.
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