Lucky ticketholders in California and Florida will be celebrating the holiday season in style after matching all six numbers drawn in Friday night’s Mega Millions® drawing — the white balls 9, 22, 26, 41 and 44, plus the gold Mega Ball 19, lottery officials said.
The winners will share the prize of $502 million ($252.0 million cash), which is the eleventh-largest jackpot in the game’s history. The final jackpot amount was higher than the estimate due to strong sales.
And someone in Texas also walked away a millionaire.
According to lottery officials, a Texas player added the optional Megaplier (available in most states with an extra $1 purchase), which was 2X on Friday night, so that ticket is worth $2 million.
It’s the first Mega Millions jackpot win since the incredible $1.337 billion prize won in Illinois on July 29. It’s also the first time in almost exactly five years that multiple tickets have shared a single jackpot – on October 13, 2017, winners in Michigan and Rhode Island split a $42 million prize.
