LOS ANGELES (CNS) - A ticket with five numbers, but missing the Mega number in tonight's drawing of the multi-state Mega Millions lottery was sold at a convenience store in Santa Ana and is worth $3,231,865, the California Lottery announced.
There were five other tickets sold with five numbers, but missing the Mega number. The others were sold in Florida, Georgia, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Washington state. Each of the others are worth $1 million except the one sold in Washington state.
The player with the ticket with five numbers and the Mega number sold in Washington state utilized the Megaplier option which made the ticket worth $2 million after the 2X Megaplier was drawn, the Multi-State Lottery Association, which conducts the game, announced.
California law requires major payoffs of lottery games to be paid on a pari-mutuel basis, meaning the payoff is determined by the size of the pool instead of a fixed amount.
The numbers drawn Friday were 9, 10, 25, 37, 38 and the Mega number was 21. The estimated jackpot was $370 million.
There were no tickets sold with all six numbers and the estimated jackpot for Tuesday's drawing will grow to an estimated $415 million, the eighth largest in the history of the game, which began in 1996 as the Big Game and rebranded as Mega Millions in 2002.
The drawing was the 19th since the last time a ticket with all six numbers was sold.
The odds of matching all five numbers and the Mega number are 1 in 302,575,350, according to the California Lottery. The overall chance of winning a prize is 1 in 24.
The Mega Millions game is played in 44 states, the District of Columbia and U.S. Virgin Islands.