No Mega Millions winners on Tuesday, prize reaches $508 million

(Reuters) – The jackpot for the Mega Millions lottery drawing rose to $508 million, the seventh largest in U.S. lottery history, after nobody won the grand prize on Tuesday, lottery officials said.

No ticket matched all of the winning numbers – 29, 46, 53, 64, 73 with the Mega Ball 10 – selected at 11 p.m. EDT, Mega Millions said in a statement.

The Mega Millions game is played in 44 states, Washington, D.C. and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The odds of winning this jackpot are one in nearly 259 million.

The next drawing is Friday at 11 p.m. EST.

The jackpot has been growing since early March, when a Washington state man snagged $157 million with his winning ticket.

Each $1 ticket sold makes up the hefty prize, which was worth $357 million on Tuesday evening if a winner chooses an immediate cash payout instead of an initial payment and then 29 annual payments.

Ticket sales typically increase as the prize grows, lottery officials said.

The current prize is the game’s biggest since December 2013, when holders of two tickets sold in California and Georgia shared a $648 million jackpot. The largest Mega Millions jackpot, worth $656 million, was sold the prior year.

In January, three winning Powerball tickets were sold in Florida, Tennessee and California to claim a share of nearly $1.6 billion, the largest prize to have been won on a single lottery game anywhere in the world.

On social media on Tuesday, ticket holders fantasized about their plans if they won the prize, including plans to buy expensive clothing and even sports teams.

“If I win tonight’s Mega Millions, I’m going to buy my own basketball league,” comedian Spencer Hicks tweeted.

(Reporting by Laila Kearney in New York and Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Matthew Lewis)