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Massive lottery jackpots continued to grow even larger after no winners were announced for the prizes in Friday and Saturday night drawings. Combined, the Powerball and Mega Millions jackpots are now worth more than $US2.2 billion.

Powerball’s $US476.7 million jackpot was boosted to $US620 million after no ticket matched the numbers drawn Saturday night:16-54-57-62-69-23.

The next drawing, which has an estimated cash value of $US354.3 million, will be held on Wednesday, October 24.

The Mega Millions jackpot has hit a staggering $US1.6 billion – the largest lottery prize ever – after no ticket matched the six numbers drawn Friday night: 15-23-53-65-70, and Mega Ball 7.

The odds of winning Friday’s $US1 billion jackpot, which was already the biggest ever, were one in 302.5 million, or 0.00000033%.

“Mega Millions has already entered historic territory, but it’s truly astounding to think that now the jackpot has reached an all-time world record,” Gordon Medenica, lead director of the Mega Millions Group, told The Washington Post on Sunday. “It’s hard to overstate how exciting this is – but now it’s really getting fun.”

The next Mega Millions drawing is Tuesday, October 23. The estimated cash option for the $US1.6 billion prize is nearly $US905 million.

The current record-holder for the largest lottery jackpot was a Powerball prize of $US1.59 billion in 2016. The previous record for a Mega Millions prize was $US656 million in 2012.

Although it may be tempting to buy a lottery ticket with such massive prizes, it’s actually not a very good investment. Business Insider’s Andy Kiersz did the maths to see if it’s worth buying a Powerball and Mega Millions ticket. He found that the low odds of winning and the high probability of having to split the prize means you’d probably lose money buying a ticket.

But if you do decide to try your luck and happen to win the lottery, you should keep the news to yourself at first, hire a lawyer and a financial planner, and in most cases, choose the annuity payments rather than taking the cash lump sum all at once.

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