Winning $312 million lottery ticket sold in New York

By Mike Morris

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A single winning ticket was sold in Friday night's $312 million lottery jackpot. The winning ticket was sold in Albany, New York.

The winning numbers were 22, 24, 31, 52, 54 with the 4 Mega ball.

The top prize in the multi-state game had been growing twice a week for nearly two months,  since players in Indiana and Michigan split a $45 million jackpot on Feb. 1.

Brisk ticket sales prompted lottery officials to bump the top prize up from an earlier-announced $304 million.

The jackpot was the sixth largest in Mega Millions history. The largest was $390 million in 2007.

If a single player matches all six numbers in tonight's drawing and chooses the cash option, that player would receive an estimated $198 million before taxes. If that player chooses to be paid over time, he or she would get approximately $12 million a year for 26 years.

If all your numbers didn't line up there's still Saturday night's Powerball game, which carries a current jackpot of $125 million.

And just in case you're wondering, the odds of winning the top Mega Millions prize are one in 175 million, slightly better than the one in 195 million odds of winning Saturday's Powerball jackpot.