The Mega Millions® jackpot has surpassed the magical half-billion mark, and the next drawing on Friday, May 21, will feature an estimated $515 million prize ($346.3 million cash).
The jackpot has been rolling since it was last won in New York on February 16, and in the game’s 19-year history there have only been eight jackpots higher than Friday’s estimated bonanza!
The winning numbers for May 18 are the white balls 3, 5, 56, 61 and 66, plus the gold Mega Ball 4. There were a total of 1,371,494 winning tickets at all prize levels in Tuesday night’s drawing; five matched the five white balls to win the game’s second prize.
One of those, sold in Virginia, included the optional Megaplier (a $1 extra purchase available in most states) and is worth $2 million after the 2X Megaplier was drawn. Of the other four Match 5 winning tickets, two were sold in California and one each in Delaware and Ohio.
For matching four white balls plus the Mega Ball, 34 tickets won $10,000 each; three of those are actually worth $20,000 each because they also included the optional Megaplier.
In this current jackpot run, since February 16 there have been more than 17.8 million winning tickets at all prize levels, including 31 worth $1 million or more.
Two Mega Millions jackpots have been won to date in 2021. Most recently, $96 million was won by a New York couple on February 16. On January 22, a whopping $1.05 billion prize went to a group of players in Michigan. That was the second-largest jackpot in the history of the game, surpassed only by the massive $1.537 billion prize won in October 2018.
The top Mega Millions jackpots to date:
| Amount | Date | Winning Tickets |
| $1.537 billion | 10/23/2018 | 1-SC |
| $1.050 billion | 1/22/2021 | 1-MI |
| $656 million | 3/30/2012 | 3-IL, KS, MD |
| $648 million | 12/17/2013 | 2-CA, GA |
| $543 million | 7/24/2018 | 1-CA |
| $536 million | 7/8/2016 | 1-IN |
| $533 million | 3/30/2018 | 1-NJ |
| $522 million | 6/7/2019 | 1-CA |
| $515 million (est) | 5/21//2021 | ? |
| $451 million | 1/5/2018 | 1-FL |