The Mega Millions jackpot climbed to an estimated $800 million after no ticket matched all the winning numbers in Friday night’s drawing, extending a four-month stretch without a grand prize winner and pushing the prize into the No. 10 spot among the largest jackpots in the game’s history.
The winning Mega Millions numbers for Friday were 2, 5, 42, 44 and 60, with the gold Mega Ball 1, lottery officials said. The jackpot for the drawing had been advertised at $743 million.
While no ticket matched all five white balls, 13 players came close by matching four white balls plus the gold Mega Ball. Those tickets won third-tier prizes ranging from $20,000 to $40,000, depending on whether the player selected a prize multiplier.
California recorded the most third-tier winners, with five tickets. Florida and Ohio each had two, while additional winning tickets were sold in Georgia, South Carolina, Idaho and Missouri.
Mega Millions has now gone 37 straight drawings without a jackpot winner. The most recent grand prize was claimed on March 17, when The Happy Trails Trust won $60 million in Van Wert, Ohio.
The odds of winning the Mega Millions jackpot are 1 in 290,472,336.
At an estimated $800 million, the current jackpot is the largest Mega Millions prize since November 14, 2025, when a ticket sold in Georgia won $983 million, a prize that stands as the eighth-largest in the game’s history.
That winner, who chose to remain anonymous, took the one-time cash option of $453.6 million before taxes.
Mega Millions players have only struck gold twice in 2026 with the Happy Trails Trust win and a week earlier when an anonymous online player in Illinois won the $536 million grand prize on March 10.
The game is on pace to have the fewest jackpot winners in a given year, as only two grand prizes have been won up to July 24, the same amount of top prizes won in 2024 to this point.
That year saw four total jackpot winners, according to game officials.
Lottery players looking to cash in on one of the largest prizes in history have their next shot at glory on Tuesday.
The Mega Millions isn’t the only lottery with a historic prize on the line, as the Powerball jackpot sits at an estimated $600 million for Saturday night’s drawing.
Powerball hasn’t seen a jackpot winner since May 2, when two tickets in Florida and Texas matched the winning numbers for the $20 million prize.
The split winners came in the drawing after two other players, in Indiana and Kansas, split the $143.4 million prize for the April 29 drawing.
It was the first time Powerball had back-to-back jackpot winners since 2021.
