Jackpot News Galore/Dueling Jackpots!

Aug. 9 update: Nobody hit the jackpot in last night's Mega Millions drawing, so the dueling jackpots are still ON! The Mega Millions jackpot now stands an estimated $382 million annuity ($238.3 million lump-sum option) for Friday's drawing. So now we'll wait to see what happens in tonight's Powerball drawing ...       

This week is the first time that the jackpots in Powerball® and Mega Millions® have both topped the $300 million mark at the same time since the games began to be sold by all U.S. lotteries seven years ago.
 
Prior to January 2010, the two games were sold by separate groups of lotteries. U.S. lottery directors reached an agreement back then that allowed both games to be sold by all states.

The jackpot for tonight’s Mega Millions drawing is an estimated $350 million annuity ($218.3 million cash option), while the Powerball jackpot for tomorrow night is an estimated $307 million annuity ($193.2 million cash option). That puts both jackpots in the Top 25 for each game.

The fact that both games are seeing big jackpots at the same time is unusual, and it speaks to the unpredictable nature of lottery jackpots: You just never know when the next big winner will hit!

Both jackpots have been growing for some time now. The Mega Millions jackpot was last won in the drawing on April 28 with a ticket purchased in California. It’s been growing since then to hit its current level. Remember that you can buy tickets here in Iowa for tonight’s Mega Millions drawing up until 8:59 p.m.

And the Powerball jackpot was last won on June 10 with a ticket purchased in California. You can buy tickets here in Iowa for tomorrow night’s Powerball jackpot up until 8:59 p.m. tomorrow.

If you buy tickets after those deadlines, they’ll be for a later, upcoming drawing.

Mega Millions and Powerball have both seen jackpots much larger than their current amounts, but not at the same time. Powerball currently has the world record for a lottery jackpot: a prize of nearly $1.6 billion that was split in January 2016 by three tickets in California, Florida and Tennessee. The largest Mega Millions jackpot to date is a $656 million prize won in March 212 by three tickets in Illinois, Kansas and Maryland. 

Iowa Lottery players have won eight Powerball jackpots so far. The biggest Powerball prize won to date in Iowa was a $241 million jackpot claimed in June 2012 by The Shipping 20, a group of co-workers from the Quaker Oats plant in Cedar Rapids. And while Iowa has seen several winners at the $1 million level in Mega Millions, we are still waiting for our first jackpot winner in that game here in Iowa.

Comments

[Mary Neubauer]

Thanks for sharing your comment here, Ron. We do hear this thought regarding games like Powerball, but sales don't reflect that. Sales always follow the jackpot up -- meaning the higher the prize is, the more people jump into the game and play. It seems like people vote with their pocketbooks on that point. But your point is why we offer all the other prize levels in the game and have always kept the "second" prize in Powerball and Mega Millions (the Match 5 prize) a significant amount as well. That way, we have lots of big winners in the game, and not just at the jackpot level.

[Ron Baker]

These jackpots should never get this high before someone wins. This is crazy. You should make it easier, not harder to win.