SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Lottery officials announce that the MEGA Millions jackpot for Tuesday night’s draw has rolled to $145 million! “This is the third largest lotto jackpot made available to players in the Lottery’s 20-year history,” said Chon Gutierrez, Acting Director of the California State Lottery.
Equally as exciting as the jackpot soaring to $145 million is the total number of 117,401 players winning more than $800,000 in prizes and 1 player winning a second prize totaling $256,058 from Friday night’s draw.
Since being introduced in California MEGA Millions has shattered first-day sales records with $2.4 million, eclipsing New York’s first day MEGA Millions’ sales of $1.7 million, set in 2002.
The current MEGA Millions jackpot is inching towards the California State Lottery jackpot record of $193 million, set by SuperLOTTO Plus in 2002.
ABOUT MEGA MILLIONS: MEGA Millions draws occur on Tuesday and Friday nights at 8 p.m. Pacific Time. Originally called “The Big Game,” its first draw was on September 6, 1996. It was one of the first multi-state lotteries to be introduced to generate large jackpots. Currently, 12 states are part of MEGA Millions, including California, New York, Texas, Ohio, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, Virginia, and Washington.