Mega Millions Jackpot Almost Equal To Total Domestic Box Office Of ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’

Two dollars won’t get you very far at the movie theater these days. It won’t buy you the most discounted senior or student ticket to the cheapest matinee show, and it can’t buy you a single snack behind the counter. If they sold popcorn by the kernel, maybe $2 could get you about a dozen kernels. Maybe.

But at your local lottery retailer, or on an iLottery app if they’re available in your state, $2 is the exact price of a dream.

The size of that dream currently? If you’re playing Mega Millions for Friday night’s drawing, it’s an estimated $527 million. For a little movie-business perspective on that number, if a movie had made $527 million domestically, it would be the No. 3 box office hit of 2024, just a shade behind Deadpool & Wolverine ($553.5 million in domestic gross).

The No. 1 hit of 2024 is still Inside Out 2 with $643.5 million in U.S. gross — a number that could be within reach if the Mega Millions jackpot rolls over a few more times.

Only 12 times in the history of the Mega Millions has the jackpot gone higher than it is right now. One of those times was the last time a player won it — on June 4 of this year, when an anonymous player in Illinois who bought their ticket online hit the $552 million jackpot. Since then, there have been 22 Mega Millions drawings without a grand prize winner (though 43 players have won a Match 5 prize of $1 million or more during that span).

The latest results

The streak extended Tuesday when, for a potential $498 million jackpot, the winning numbers were 5, 20, 26, 49, and 51, with a gold Mega Ball of 24. One player in Arizona won $1 million, while another in Delaware paid an extra dollar to play the Megaplier and won $4 million.

Lottery Geeks estimates roughly 22.7 million tickets were purchased for Tuesday’s drawing, up slightly from the estimated 21.96 million sold for the preceding Mega Millions game, last Friday.

Ticket sales are quite a bit lower for Powerball, thanks to its relatively modest jackpot value. After Monday’s $44.3 million win in California, the grand prize reset to $20 million for Wednesday. For that Wednesday drawing, Lottery Geeks estimates 7.47 million tickets were sold.

On winning numbers Wednesday of 27, 31, 33, 38, and 67 with a red Powerball of 3, the largest prize awarded was $50,000.

After a single rollover, Saturday’s Powerball drawing has an advertised jackpot of $34 million — a little under what Deadpool & Wolverine is tracking toward earning domestically in its fourth week of release.

Tickets for either Mega Millions or Powerball cost $2, with the option in most states to play the prize multiplier for an extra $1. Both lotteries are available in all states except Alabama, Alaska, Hawaii, Nevada, and Utah. Tickets are also sold in Washington, D.C., the U.S. Virgin Islands, and, for Powerball only, Puerto Rico.

All-time biggest jackpots

Here is a list of the all-time top 10 U.S. lottery jackpots:

1. $2.04 billion, Powerball, Nov. 7, 2022, won in California
2. $1.76 billion, Powerball, Oct. 11, 2023, won in California
3. $1.6 billion, Mega Millions, Aug. 8, 2023, won in Florida
4. $1.59 billion, Powerball, Jan. 13, 2016, won in California, Florida, and Tennessee
5. $1.54 billion, Mega Millions, Oct. 23, 2018, won in South Carolina
6. $1.35 billion, Mega Millions, Jan. 13, 2023, won in Maine
7. $1.34 billion, Mega Millions, July 29, 2022, won in Illinois
8. $1.33 billion, Powerball, April 6, 2024, won in Oregon
9. $1.13 billion, Mega Millions, March 26, 2024, won in New Jersey
10. $1.08 billion, Powerball, July 19, 2023, won in California

And here’s the all-time top 10 by lump-sum cash value:

1. $997.6 million, Powerball, Nov. 7, 2022, won in California
2. $983.5 million, Powerball, Jan. 13, 2016, won in California, Florida, and Tennessee
3. $877.8 million, Mega Millions, Oct. 23, 2018, won in South Carolina
4. $794.2 million, Mega Millions, Aug. 8, 2023, won in Florida
5. $780.5 million, Mega Millions, July 29, 2022, won in Illinois
6. $776.6 million, Mega Millions, Jan. 22, 2021, won in Michigan
7. $774.1 million, Powerball, Oct. 11, 2023, won in California
8. $723.5 million, Mega Millions, Jan. 13, 2023, won in Maine
9. $621 million, Powerball, April 6, 2024, won in Oregon
10. $558.1 million, Powerball, July 19, 2023, won in California