News writer
It's been almost 100 days since anyone has cracked the Mega Millions jackpot, and the suspense is building. After 27 straight drawings without a grand prize winner, the pot has swelled to over half a billion dollars — its biggest of the year.
But how does this massive prize compare to last year's billion-dollar jackpots, and what do the recent rule changes mean for players chasing lottery history?
27 draws without a jackpot winner
This current Mega Millions jackpot run has now made it 27 drawings without a jackpot winner. The last win came on June 27, 2025, when one lucky ticket purchased in Virginia won the $348 million jackpot, which happened to be the biggest jackpot win ever in the state.
The latest Mega Millions drawing took place on Tuesday, September 30, 2025. No tickets matched all of the winning numbers, so the jackpot climbed to $520 million for tonight's drawing, with a cash option of $240.1 million.
The winning white ball numbers for that Tuesday night drawing were 4, 8, 27, 37, and 63, and the Mega Ball number was 14. There was one Match 5 winner in California, winning $2 million.
In total, there were 330,479 winning tickets across all prize tiers for $8.8 million in total winnings.
Biggest jackpot of the year
Mega Millions officials made the biggest changes to the game since 2017 back in April 2025. Some of those changes included adding the multiplier, ranging from 2X up to 10X, to each play, as well as increasing the ticket price from $2 to $5.
In addition, the new game features 24 Mega Balls instead of the old 25, and the starting jackpot increased to $50 million, with the overall odds of winning the jackpot improving to 1 in 290.5 million.
All of these changes were put in place to promote bigger jackpots and prizes for players. Here we are, October 2025, and we have arrived at the biggest jackpot available in 2025, and someone will win the biggest Mega Millions jackpot of 2025 when this jackpot run comes to an end.
How does 2025 compare to 2024 jackpot wins?
For Mega Millions players, there were four jackpots won in 2024. Those jackpot wins were:
- December 27, 2024 – $1.27 billion jackpot won by a ticket purchased in California.
- September 10, 2024 – $810 million jackpot won by a ticket purchased in Texas.
- June 4, 2024 – $552 million jackpot won by a ticket purchased in Illinois.
- March 26, 2024 – $1.13 billion jackpot won by a ticket purchased in New Jersey.
Some very impressive jackpots in 2024. For 2025, we have already seen four jackpot winners for the year:
- June 27, 2025 – $348 million jackpot won by a ticket purchased in Virginia.
- April 18, 2025 – $112 million jackpot won by a ticket purchased in Ohio (the first jackpot winner after the changes took effect).
- March 25, 2025 – $349 million jackpot won by a ticket purchased in Illinois.
- January 17, 2025 – $112 million jackpot won by a ticket purchased in Arizona.
Overall, 2024 had bigger jackpots won, but 2025 is shaping up to have more jackpot winners. That would mean those better odds of winning are paying off.
Enjoy playing the lottery, and please remember to play responsibly.
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