WASHINGTON — Could we soon see another billion-dollar lottery jackpot?
Nobody won the Mega Millions jackpot Tuesday night, sending the grand prize soaring again from $400 million to an estimated $429 million.
The winning numbers for Tuesday's $400 million jackpot were 14-22-48-58-68, Mega Ball 6. The Megaplier was 2X.
The cash option, which most winners choose, was more than $216 million. That increases to $217.8 million for Friday's drawing.
Players must match all five numbers and the gold Mega Ball number to win the jackpot. Players face astronomical odds for a jackpot win: 1 in 302.5 million. While no one won the jackpot or even the runner-up $1 million prize in Tuesday's drawing, five people won $20,000 and 18 won $10,000.
The next drawing is Friday, Dec. 16.
The country has seen a record-setting year for lottery games, with multiple huge jackpots for both Mega Millions and Powerball.
After months of hype, a single Powerball ticket in California won the record-setting $2.04 billion jackpot in November. The winners have not yet come forward or been identified. California law requires winners to come forward publicly, but they have a year to do so.
Over the summer, a near-record $1.377 billion Mega Millions jackpot had Americans in a lottery frenzy in July. A winner in Illinois eventually put the run to an end and matched all six numbers to take home the grand prize. Two people came forward to claim it, but chose to stay anonymous, something that is allowed in Illinois but not every state.
In October, the jackpot climbed again to nearly half-a-billion dollars. Two ticket-holders in California and Florida matched all six Mega Millions numbers, splitting an estimated prize of $494 million between the two of them.