One ticket, $344 million — Mega Millions has a big winner in Illinois

The Mega Millions jackpot has been hit once again, and this time, it's a whopping $344 million. Illinois is celebrating after one lucky ticket matched all six numbers, marking the second jackpot win of 2025 for the draw game.

As we count down to the exciting changes coming to the game in April, could Illinois be on a lucky streak? With millions in prizes already handed out across the country, this latest win is just one of many big moments in the ongoing Mega Millions saga.

One ticket wins the jackpot

We are just two weeks away from exciting game changes to the Mega Millions game, but before those changes take effect, we just saw the jackpot won for the second time in 2025.

For the March 25 drawing, the winning white ball numbers were 1, 5, 17, 39, and 62, and the Mega Ball number was 8. The Megaplier was 2X.

There was one lucky ticket sold in Illinois that matched all six of the winning numbers to win the $344 million ($159.1 million cash option) jackpot. The winning ticket was purchased at Casey's General Store #1305, located at 70 S. Somonauk Rd. in Cortland.

Jackpot run winners

During this latest Mega Millions jackpot run, 19 drawings helped it reach that $344 million mark. The last jackpot win took place during the January 17, 2025, drawing, where one lucky player in Arizona won the $113 million jackpot.

For this latest jackpot run, lottery officials said there were over 8.8 million winning tickets sold across all the prize tiers. Those prize winners include 16 second-tier prizes of $1 million or more, which were won in California, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and Washington.

In last night's drawing, there were 619,889 winning tickets sold, in addition to the jackpot-winning ticket. One of those winning tickets happened to be sold in Florida, which matched the five winning white balls to win $1 million. In addition, there were 18 tickets that matched four white balls plus the Mega Ball to win the third-tier prize — seven are worth $20,000 after including the Megaplier, and 11 didn't include the Megaplier option, so they will receive $10,000.

Is Illinois the new lucky state for Mega Millions players?

With this big win last night, we are wondering if Illinois is becoming one of the luckiest states for Mega Millions players. Besides the $334 million win last night, there was jackpot-winning ticket sold online in Illinois last year for the Mega Millions drawing.

That drawing took place on June 4, 2024, and that lucky player won the $552 million jackpot that night, which was the ninth-largest jackpot in the game's history. It was also the largest prize ever won by an online lottery player in the country's history.

One lucky player also won $1 million during this latest jackpot run, so big winners coming from this state, which is one of the founding members of Mega Millions in 2002. Since that time, they have produced 16 jackpot wins, which includes the game's very first two jackpot winners in May 2022.

Changes coming to Mega Millions

As mentioned above, there will be big changes coming to the Mega Millions draw game in April. The final drawing of the current game will take place on Friday, April 4.

After that, the changes will take place, which feature bigger prizes at every non-jackpot prize tier, better odds to win the jackpot, larger starting jackpots, and faster-growing jackpots. The first drawing with these changes in place will be on Tuesday, April 8.

Some highlights of the changes coming:

• The Mega Ball numbers will go from 25 numbers to 24 numbers, which will improve the overall odds to win the jackpot from 1 in 302.6 million to 1 in 290.5 million.
• The jackpots will reset to $50 million instead of the current $20 million. If no one wins the April 4 drawing, that jackpot will rollover to the April 8 drawing, when these changes take effect. It will then reset to $50 million when the jackpot is eventually won.
• Every ticket will automatically include the Megaplier, which will increase the non-jackpot winning prizes by 2X, 3X, 4X, 5X, or 10X.
• Ticket prices will increase to $5 per play, but the minimum prize you can now win is $10, so at least double the cost of your ticket.

Enjoy playing the lottery, and please remember to play responsibly.