The 1 Billion winning jackpot Mega Millions ticket, the largest lottery prize, in third place, in US history, was sold in Michigan. The news comes from a confirmed report. The winning numbers were the Mega Ball 24, 4, 42, 26, 60, 50.
The Mega Millions jackpot has been growing since last September when a winning ticket was last sold in Wisconsin. Since then, there has been a lull in the jackpot-winning streak owing to the pandemic, lousy luck, and other odds. Following suit, the fifth-largest lottery jackpot in the country’s history was the Powerball jackpot, won in Maryland, worth US $716.3 million (as an annuity paid over thirty years/ cash the US $546 million).
The Probability Of Winning The Mega Millions Jackpot
Statisticians in various news reports tried to explain the odds of winning the Mega Million jackpot. It is similar to finding a needle in a haystack. Professors tried to give examples that oddly showed the high percentage of the improbability of one winning the lottery. It seemed almost unimaginable and impractical on one’s part to conceive oneself as a winner given the parameters. Yet, someone did win last Friday, beating all the odds.
According to Medenica, the lottery games in the country faced low sales since the pandemic hit hard last year. Sales of the Mega Millions and Powerball also declined, owing to the same reason, along with several additional lottery games. The falling sales prompted officials accordingly to reduce the amount of jackpots to almost half of their previous ones. Those were from the US $40 million – the US $20 million.
Though this was a sensible decision to go with when the sales of the tickets were down, it led the climb up the ladder to the jackpots slowly. It takes several rolls to reach the top. With a lesser amount at the base, it takes more than expected time to reach such an insane amount as Friday’s win.
