Mega Millions jackpot climbs to $445M ahead of Tuesday’s drawing

The Mega Millions jackpot now stands at an estimated $445 million ahead of Tuesday’s drawing. 

The jackpot’s cash option totals $226 million. 

Tuesday’s drawing will be held at 11 p.m. ET. 

If the jackpot is won, lottery officials said it would be the 12th largest jackpot in the game’s 20-year history. 

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The last drawing was held on October 7 and there were 817,320 winning tickets at all prize levels, but no jackpot. Two tickets sold in California and Texas matched all the white balls, which was the second-tier prize. 

When is the Mega Millions drawing?

Mega Millions drawings are held Tuesday and Friday at 11 p.m. ET. Five white balls are drawn from a set of balls numbered 1 through 70, and one gold Mega Ball is drawn from a set of balls numbered 1 through 25. Players win if the numbers on one row of a ticket match the numbers of the balls drawn on that date.

How to play Mega Millions

Mega Millions tickets cost $2 per play. Players win the jackpot by matching all six numbers in a drawing. If no one wins the jackpot, the money is added to the jackpot for the next drawing.

For those lucky enough to become a Mega Millions jackpot winner, they get the choice of a cash option or an annual payout. The annuity option means getting an initial payment followed by 29 annual payments, and each payment is 5% larger than the previous one. For those that select the cash option, they receive a one-time, lump-sum payment that is equal to all the cash in the Mega Millions jackpot prize pool after taxes. 

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The odds of winning the Mega Millions jackpot prize is roughly 1 in 302,575,350, lottery officials said. But a player’s overall chance of winning any prize is 1 in 24.

FOX 5 New York contributed to this report. This story was reported from Los Angeles.