No Dec. 23 winner: Mega Millions Pops Above $200M; Friday's Winning Numbers

The Mega Millions multi-state lottery has risen above $200 million, to $206 million, as there were no winning tickets for the full jackpot on Friday, Dec. 23, 2011: Merry Christmas.

Actually, the next drawing is not until Tuesday, Dec. 27, so it will miss Christmas, but Santa certainly didn't deliver an early present on the doorstep of any ticket holders on Friday. The Mega Millions lottery, which encompasses 43 jurisdictions, rose to the magic nine-digit number ($100 million) back on Friday, December 9, 2011.

Since then, Its continued to rise, hitting $116 million on Tuesday, Dec. 13, $135 million for the Friday, Dec. 16 jackpot, $152 million on Dec. 20, and $173 million last night, Dec. 23. With no winner on Dec. 23, 2011, the jackpot now rises to an annuity payout of $206 million for the Tuesday, Dec. 27 drawing.

The winning numbers for the Dec. 20, 2011 drawing were 3, 5, 8, 18, 29, with the Mega Ball number being 14. Although no one won the big jackpot, the following list shows the number of winners and amounts for other ticket matches:

5 + 0 (Mega ball match) 31 $250,000
4 + 1 (Mega ball match) 124 $10,000
4 + 0 (Mega ball match) 5,877 $150
3 + 1 (Mega ball match) 5,040 $150
2 + 1 (Mega ball match) 73,179 $10
3 + 0 (Mega ball match) 240,448 $7
1 + 1 (Mega ball match) 411,822 $3
0 + 1 (Mega ball match) 744,494 $2

Mega Millions uses what is called a double matrix drawing to pick the winning numbers. Those buying tickets have to select 5 numbers from a 1 - 56 grid (those balls are ejected from a machine that spits out white balls) and one number out of a separate 1 - 46 matrix (those balls are ejected from a machine that spits out gold balls, and that ball becomes what is dubbed the Mega Ball). The Mega Ball number is drawn from a separate machine, so it can be a duplicate of one of the white ball numbers.

The double matrix system is used in many other lotto systems. Among them are California's Super Lotto single state jackpot and the rival Powerball multi-state jackpot (Powerball and Mega Millions overlap in many jurisdictions).

There are currently 43 jurisdictions included in the game. Of those, 42 (all but California) offer the option that is called the Megaplier. If a player doubles down a their wager of $1, they can activate the Megaplier option, which gives them an opportunity to multiply any NON-jackpot prize by 2, 3, or 4. The Megaplier is drawn by the Texas Lottery (before the cross-sell expansion on January 31, 2010, it was the ONLY lottery to offer Megaplier) through the use of a random number generator.

Mega Millions' largest "annuity" jackpot was $390 million for the March 6, 2007 drawing. The annuity jackpot is paid out in annual installments; 26 of them. In that case, two tickets won; one each from Georgia and New Jersey. Both sets of winners chose the cash payout option, splitting $233.1 million.

The difference between an annuity payout and a cash payout is significant and reflects the fact that interest from the unpaid funds is used to generate the extra money for the annuity. For example, in the case of the Tuesday, Dec. 27, 2011 drawing, the cash payout will be $151.9 million vs. the $206 million annuity payout.

The largest cash jackpot was $240 million, for the January 4, 2011 drawing. However, because of more favorable interest rates used to calculate the 2007 annuity, that drawing was only the second largest annuity jackpot, at $380 million. Once again, two tickets, one each from Post Falls, Idaho, and Ephrata, Washington, matched all six winning numbers. Again, the holders of the winning tickets opted for the cash option.

Interestingly, the rival multi-state Powerball jackpot is also above $100 million. The jackpot for the Dec. 24 jackpot is estimated to be $125 Million ($80.2 million cash value).

Image Source: Wikimedia Commons

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