Mega Millions

You can't win if you don't buy a lottery ticket.

A little over a month ago, $1.33 billion, the third-largest lottery jackpot in U.S. history, was won by someone who purchased their Mega Millions ticket right here in Illinois at a Speedway gas station in Des Plaines. When you look at that kind of money, you wonder why the winner has not announced themselves to lottery officials yet.

One lucky Mega Millions lottery ticket-buyer in Illinois is going to be a billionaire following Friday night’s $1.337 billion drawing, but the question is are we ever going to know that person's name?

We saw the fifth highest jackpot in Illinois history last week. No winner means that we will get the third highest jackpot in Illinois history this week.

As of this writing, tonight's Mega Millions lottery jackpot stands at $660 million, which makes the 10pm drawing now the 3rd biggest jackpot ever. Only two billion-dollar jackpots have ever been higher; $1.537 billion won in South Carolina on October 23rd, 2018, and $1.050 billion won in Michigan on January 22nd, 2021.

MegaMillions had to suspend payouts after its TV host called a wrong number, the jackpot was worth $86M.

After reading about Clark Gas, a Loves Park gas station selling a winning Lucky Day Lotto ticket worth $400,000 a couple days back, I thought it might be fun to see who's won the big money and how much they walked away with (pre-tax).

As I look at an email I just got from the Illinois Lottery, I see that tonight's Powerball drawing has about $730 million reasons for you to consider playing. As the Illinois Lottery's Jessica Perez explains, "This is the fourth largest Powerball prize in game history and the sixth highest jackpot in U.S. lottery history."

Holy s***, I can't believe it happened. I just won a nearly-billion-dollar jackpot. What do I do now? And, what do I do first? Here's comes some expect advice.

Nobody matched all the numbers in Friday's Mega Millions game. That means Tuesday's (10/17) jackpot will be the 2nd largest in the history of the game.