Texans spending thousands of dollars a minute on Mega Millions ahead of Friday’s massive jackpot drawing

Next Mega Millions drawing is Friday

SAN ANTONIO – Texans are hoping to hit it big in Friday night’s Mega Millions lottery drawing which has a current estimated jackpot of $750 million.

The Mega Millions lottery drawing currently has an estimated cash option of $550.6 million. If there’s only one winning ticket sold, it will be the third-largest lottery prize in U.S. history, according to MegaMillions.com.

A spokesperson for the Texas Lottery said that Texans are currently averaging $13,028 per minute in ticket sales for the Mega Millions drawing as of 3 p.m. Friday.

“The 2:00 – 2:59 hour included $781,676 in draw sales,” lottery officials said in a news release.

The largest recorded Mega Millions jackpot went to a single winner in South Carolina in October 2018. The winning ticket was worth $1.537 billion.

Tuesday night’s drawing saw a total of 3,701,286 winning tickets at all prize levels, including nine tickets that matched the five white balls to win the game’s second prize worth $1 million.

Mega Millions tickets are $2 per play with an option to add the “megaplier” for an additional $1 per play. The megaplier increases non-jackpot prizes by 2, 3, 4 or 5 times based on the megaplier number that is drawn that night. Megaplier balls are drawn from a pool of 15 balls - five are marked with 2X, six with 3X, three with 4X and one with 5X, MegaMillions.com states.

Drawings for the Mega Millions lottery are at 10 p.m. on Tuesdays and Fridays.

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About the Author:

Mary Claire Patton has been a journalist with KSAT 12 since 2015. She has reported on several high-profile stories during her career at KSAT and specializes in trending news and things to do around Texas and San Antonio.