Eva Deschamps / July 28, 2022
The jackpot for Friday's U.S. Mega Millions lottery drawing passed the $1 billion mark, making it the fourth largest payout ever, its organizer announced Wednesday.
The lottery's jackpot has been growing for more than three months, as have the dreams of its players, as no one has been able to guess the right six numbers in the previous 29 draws.
On Friday, just over $1 billion will be at stake, according to a Mega Millions press release.
After Tuesday night's drawing, the influx of players eager to find out if they had become rich caused the Mega Millions site to crash for nearly two hours, the group said.
However, the odds of winning this attractive amount are only 1 in nearly 303 million. For comparison, the odds of being struck by lightning are 1 in 1 million, according to U.S. health officials.
The largest win ever was $1.586 billion. It was won in January 2016 in the other major U.S. lottery, Powerball, but the loot was split among three winners.
The $1 billion presented Friday represents what the lucky winner would get if he agreed to spread the payment over more than 30 years.
If he wished to receive his prize in a lump sum, he would only receive the modest sum of 603 million - part of which would then be deducted by taxes - according to an estimate by Mega Millions.
Mega Millions was created in 2002. Its formula has been modified several times to lower the probability of hitting the jackpot, which has allowed the jackpot to regularly rise to several hundred million dollars.