Mega Millions Hands Out Pot Of Gold In Ohio On St. Patrick’s Day

Well, that didn’t take long. Just one week after a lottery player in Illinois hit the Mega Millions jackpot for $533 million, the feat was repeated in Ohio — on St. Patrick’s Day, making the greenest holiday of the year extra green for some lucky customer.

Tuesday night’s jackpot was a relatively modest $60 million (cash option: $27.1 million) on the second drawing after it reset to $50 million, but that’s still not a bad pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for the player holding a ticket with the winning numbers 4, 11, 18, 38, 50, and gold Mega Ball 24.

According to the Ohio Lottery, the winning ticket was sold at the Tyler’s Short Stop gas station at 714 East Main Street in Van Wert, a town in northwestern Ohio close to the Indiana border.

Other than the perfect six-for-six winner, the next largest prize awarded in Tuesday’s drawing was $40,000, for getting four white balls, the gold Mega Ball, and a 4x Megaplier. Nobody got a “Match 5,” with the four white balls sans Mega Ball for a score between $2 million and $10 million.

Lottery Geeks estimates 4.1 million tickets were sold for this drawing, down appreciably from the estimated 9.5 million sold one week earlier, when the advertised jackpot was over $500 million.

Twice in one week!

Two Mega Millions jackpot wins this close together are rare, but not unheard of. The last time it happened was in the summer of 2023, when a $1.602 billion jackpot landed on Aug. 8, followed by a mere $39 million jackpot on Aug. 15.

The year 2023 was actually loaded with consecutive and nearly consecutive wins.

A $1.348 billion win on Jan. 13 was followed by a $20 million win in the very next drawing on Jan. 17, a $33 million score on Jan. 24, and a $31 million hit on Jan. 31 — marking four jackpots in a span of six draws.

And not long after, there were back-to-backs that April, with a $483 million jackpot on April 14 and a $20 million hit on April 18.

Last Friday, in the drawing in between these two jackpot wins, Mega Millions awarded its first-ever $10 million second-tier prize, as a player in Florida hit everything but the gold Mega Ball and paired that with a 10x Megaplier.

All this Mega Millions excitement means Powerball offers the highest jackpot in the land at the moment, with an estimated $101 million (cash value: $46 million) up top for Wednesday’s drawing.

In the most recent Powerball drawing, on Monday night, the winning numbers were 7, 10, 20, 47, 52, and red Powerball 20. There were two $1 million Match 5 winners (in New York and Oregon) and a $2 million claimant (in North Carolina).

Tickets for Mega Millions cost $5 and Powerball tickets cost $2. Most states offer the multiplier option for Powerball, which impacts any prize won except the jackpot, for an additional $1. Mega Millions comes with an automatic multiplier for any prize except the jackpot.

Both Powerball and Mega Millions are legal in all states except Alabama, Alaska, Hawaii, Nevada, and Utah. Tickets for both draw games are also sold in Washington, D.C. and the U.S. Virgin Islands. In Puerto Rico, customers can buy tickets for Powerball, but not for Mega Millions.

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. $1.82 billion, Powerball, Dec. 24, 2025, won in Arkansas
3. $1.79 billion, Powerball, Sept. 6, 2025, won in Missouri and Texas
4. $1.76 billion, Powerball, Oct. 11, 2023, won in California
5. $1.6 billion, Mega Millions, Aug. 8, 2023, won in Florida
6. $1.59 billion, Powerball, Jan. 13, 2016, won in California, Florida, and Tennessee
7. $1.54 billion, Mega Millions, Oct. 23, 2018, won in South Carolina
8. $1.35 billion, Mega Millions, Jan. 13, 2023, won in Maine
9. $1.34 billion, Mega Millions, July 29, 2022, won in Illinois
10. $1.33 billion, Powerball, April 6, 2024, won in Oregon

Here is 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. $834.9 million, Powerball, Dec. 24, 2025, won in Arkansas
5. $820.6 million, Powerball, Sept. 6, 2025, won in Missouri and Texas
6. $794.2 million, Mega Millions, Aug. 8, 2023, won in Florida
7. $780.5 million, Mega Millions, July 29, 2022, won in Illinois
8. $776.6 million, Mega Millions, Jan. 22, 2021, won in Michigan
9. $774.1 million, Powerball, Oct. 11, 2023, won in California
10. $723.5 million, Mega Millions, Jan. 13, 2023, won in Maine