Did you win the $333 Mega Millions?

By ajc staff

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Check your tickets.

The winning numbers in Friday night’s Mega Millions lottery drawing are:

1- 17- 31- 37-54, and the Mega Ball is 31.

Either one or more Mega Millions players is now fabulously wealthy, or the jackpot for the multi-state lottery will continue to climb toward record territory.

After 14 draws with no big winner, the jackpot for Friday’s drawing reached $333 million.

Brisk last-minute sales prompted lottery officials to raise the jackpot Friday afternoon from $325 million to $333 million.

That jackpot is the second-largest in Mega Millions history, and if a single winning ticket is sold in the state, that player would be the lottery’s biggest winner to date.

In March 2007, Eddie Nabors, a truck driver in the northwest Georgia town of Rocky Face, split a record $390 million Mega Millions jackpot with a player from New Jersey.

Georgia’s last Mega Millions jackpot winner was Mark Staffa of Rockmart, who won $42 million last October.

If a single ticket matches all six numbers tonight, that player will receive approximately $12.8 million a year, before taxes, for the next 26 years. Or, if that player chooses the cash option, he or she will get a single check worth about $210 million before taxes, Georgia Lottery Corp. officials said.

Mega Millions is played in Georgia, Virginia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachussetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Texas, California and Washington state.