An unknown holder of a lottery ticket sold in Illinois has won the second Mega Millions jackpot of 2024! After matching all six numbers drawn on June 4, 2024, the single ticket takes the prize of $552 million ($260.2 million cash).

 

The jackpot had been rolling since it was last won at $1.128 billion in New Jersey on March 26. The final jackpot amount is different from pre-drawing estimates ($560 million) because jackpots are always awarded based on actual sales, according to the lottery organizer's website.

 

The massive Mega Millions haul is the 25th-largest lottery jackpot of all time in the United States, and the 41st-largest cash value ever awarded, Online Post reminds. It is also the 8th-largest jackpot won in Mega Millions history.

 

According to officials, the ticket was purchased online through the Illinois Lottery — the first time in history a Mega Millions jackpot was won through an online purchase. 

 

Because Illinois allows lottery winners to claim jackpots anonymously, we may never learn the identity of the claimant.

 

In addition to the jackpot-winning ticket, there were 944,852 other winning tickets in the June 4 drawing. Two tickets matched the five white balls to win the game’s second-tier prize of $1 million; they were sold in California and Maryland.

 

27 tickets matched four white numbers plus the Mega Ball and won $10,000. Of those tickets, 4 were purchased with the Megaplier option, increasing the prize to $30,000, and 8 of the tickets were purchased in California with a prize amount of $4,950 each.

 

In total, 944,853 tickets won prizes across the game's nine prize tiers in Tuesday's drawing.

 

Mega Millions is the only lottery game that has produced six jackpot wins exceeding $1 billion each — all in different states. South Carolina was the first in 2018, followed by Michigan in 2021, Illinois in 2022, Maine in early 2023, Florida last August (the current game record jackpot of $1.602 billion), and New Jersey in March 2024.