Mega Millions jackpot climbs to 4th-highest lottery prize in history

SHERMAN, Texas (KXII) - For the 5th time in 5 years, Mega Millions has topped a billion.

Previous winners have come from different states, but Texas has yet to have a billion dollar jackpot winner in Powerball or Mega Millions.

The last person to win a jackpot in Texas was all the way back in 2019.

An anonymous winner in Leander claimed the $227,000,000 prize, the largest prize ever paid out to a single Texas lottery player.

Before you start to fantasize about what you’re gonna buy with all that cash, it’s important to understand just how slim the odds are.

Tim Chartier, the Joseph R. Morton Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science at Davidson College, said that it’s important to be mindful of just how bad the odds are before you go stock up on tickets.

“As long as that’s okay and you don’t mind that the odds are small because you get the dream of being a billionaire, that works pretty well,” Chartier said.

The actual odds of winning the mega millions jackpot on any given ticket is 1 in 302.6 million.

If you buy a lottery ticket for every single drawing, both Powerball and Mega Millions, every week for almost 80 years, you would still have a higher chance to be struck by lightning than to win even a single jackpot.

Chartier says that it’s often hard to grasp the real possibility of winning with numbers this large.

“Those types of comparisons are important,” Chartier said. “You’re just picking so many numbers between one and something, and then you pick these different variations, it can feel doable in a way that is deceiving.”

Should you manage to beat the odds and win big, Steve Helm with the Texas Lottery says that you shouldn’t rush to claim your prize.

“Sign the ticket, put it in a safe place, seek financial and legal advice, and then call the Texas Lottery to schedule that appointment to come and claim the prize,” Helm said.

August 4th’s Mega Millions numbers are 11, 30, 45, 52, 56, with a Mega Ball of 20.

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