The two winning Mega Millions tickets that will give its owners half of the $636 million jackpot weren't sold in New Jersey but there are two New Jersey ticket holders who are $1 million richer.

Tuesday's Mega Millions jackpot is displayed at 7-11 in Ewing
Tuesday's Mega Millions jackpot is displayed at 7-11 in Ewing (Dan Alexander, Townsquare Media NJ)
loading...

The winning numbers drawn Tuesday night were: 8, 14, 17, 20, 39; Mega Ball: 7.The Megaplier drawn was 4.

Two winning Mega Millions tickets were sold in California and Georgia, Mega Millions officials said Wednesday. 20 tickets worth $1 million each for matching 5 numbers without the Mega Ball were sold with two of them purchased in New Jersey.

New Jersey Lottery spokeswoman Judith Drucker confirms that one ticket was sold at Kartik's Food and News Store in Cranford and the other at the 7-11 store on Lakewood Road in Toms River. Neither picked the megaplier which could have made their ticket worth $4 million.

A winning Mega Millions ticket worth $250,000 was sold at Cranford Shell last August.

The $636 million jackpot was the second-largest lottery prize in U.S. history.

One ticket was sold in San Jose, Calif., California Lottery spokesman Alex Traverso said. The other was sold in Georgia, but Mega Millions' lead director Paula Otto said early Wednesday morning that she didn't yet know in which city it had been sold.

Otto, who is also the Virginia Lottery's executive director, said $336 million in tickets were sold for Tuesday's drawing — they had projected $319 million.

"Sales were a little better than we'd anticipated," Otto said. "It was a fun run, it was our first holiday run for either of the big jackpot games." She said because of the higher sales, the jackpot may be more around $645 million. The final jackpot will be available by midday Wednesday, she said.

The jackpot started its ascent on Oct. 4. Twenty-two draws came and went without a winner, Otto said. She also said a billion worth of tickets were sold during the run, earning the places that offer Mega Millions — 43 states, the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands — a total of $300 million.

The jackpot resets to $15 million for the next drawing, which is on Friday night.

The San Jose ticket was sold at Jennifer's Gift Shop, Traverso said. "For us, the main thing we'd like to get across is the level of excitement we saw all across California," he said. "At one point, we were selling about 25,000 tickets per minute. It's been an amazing experience. It's unbelievable."

The winners can choose to be paid over time or in a cash lump sum, Otto said. Based on the $636 million figure, the winners would receive $318 million each over time or $170 million each in cash.

Mega Millions changed its rules in October to help increase the jackpots by lowering the odds of winning the top prize. That means the chances of winning the jackpot are now about 1 in 259 million. It used to be about 1 in 176 million, nearly the same odds of winning a Powerball jackpot.

The Mega Millions revamp comes about two years after Powerball changed some of its game rules and increased the price of a ticket to $2 and added $1 million and $2 million secondary prizes. Mega Millions remains $1, and an extra $1 option has been expanded to allow up to $5 million as a secondary prize.

Toniann Antonelli and the Associated Press contributed to this report

 

More From SoJO 104.9 FM