Someone in Texas woke up having a very good Hump Day: They’re (hopefully still) holding a Mega Millions ticket worth $800 million.
That’s according to lottery officials, who said that a single ticket sold in the Lone Star State matched all five numbers — 1, 2, 16, 24 and 66 — plus the gold Mega Ball 6, for the biggest jackpot ever won in the month of September, and the seventh largest jackpot in the game’s history.
The ticket, sold at Murphy USA 8848 in Sugar Land, Texas, is worth $400 million after Uncle Sam takes his cut.
That said, Mega Millions officials are urging players to check their numbers: The Sept. 10 drawing produced 2,109,736 other winners across all other prize tiers. $1 million tickets, the game’s second-place finish, were sold in Washington, Florida, New York and California.
This is just the third Mega Millions jackpot of the year: The first big winner of 2024, a more than $1.12 BILLION prize, belongs to the holder of a ticket sold in New Jersey. However, after the drawing on March 26, that winner has yet to come forward.
The next drawing, for a measly $20 million jackpot, will be on Friday, Sept. 13. Despite the unlucky connotations of Friday the 13th, Mega Millions officials say seven big prizes were won on that calendar day, including a $1.3 billion ticket sold in Maine, in January 2023.