Tuesday's drawing marked the end of a 15-week streak without a winner after the multistate lottery went 31 drawings without a winner. The jackpot for Tuesday's drawing reached $1.13 billion, marking the lottery's fifth-largest prize ever. The winning numbers were the white balls 7, 11, 22, 29 and 38, and the gold Mega Ball 4.
The winner has the choice of taking $1.13 billion spread over 30 annual payments, or an immediate lump sum of $535.5 million.Mega Millions also has prizes ranging from $2 to $2 million, and the odds of winning a smaller prize are about 1 in 24. There were nearly 3.7 million winning tickets for smaller prizes on Wednesday. Among the smaller prizes, 13 tickets on Tuesday hit all five white balls, which pays out at least $1 million.