Megabucks jackpot in Massachusetts is largest since 1986

The Megabucks jackpot is up to $17.15 million for Saturday's drawing - the largest for the Massachusetts Lottery game since 1986.

It's the fourth-largest jackpot in Megabucks history, and the biggest since the game switched up its format in 2023. A jackpot winner who takes the cash option would bring home $11.62 million before taxes.

The record Megabucks jackpot is $21.7 million, which was split among eight winners in 1985. The most won on a single Megabucks ticket is $16.35 million in 2022 by a winner in Ware when the game was called Megabucks Doubler.

No one has won the Megabucks since April 21, 2025, when a nearly $2 million jackpot was hit on a ticket sold in Hyde Park.

The format switch in 2023 doubled the Megabucks ticket price to $2 to create bigger jackpots, and also added a drawing on Monday, in addition to Wednesday and Saturday drawings.

Megabucks tickets have six numbers between 1 and 44. The odds of matching all six and winning the jackpot are about 1 in 7 million. The odds of winning any prize are 1 in 42.

There's more than one big lottery prize up for grabs this weekend. The Powerball jackpot is $47 million for Saturday night's drawing. And on Friday, the Mega Millions jackpot is up to an estimated $215 million. That game also recently switched formats, though sales have dropped about 24% in Massachusetts because jackpots have not been as high as expected.