The winning ticket was bought at a Speedway gas station in Des Plaines, roughly a 20-mile drive northwest of Chicago, the Illinois Lottery said. Information about who bought the ticket was not immediately available Saturday morning.
If the holder chooses a lump-sum cash option, the ticket will yield a one-time payment of an estimated $742.2 million. Otherwise, the roughly $1.28 billion prize will be spread over annual payments.
Friday night’s winning numbers were 13, 36, 45, 57, 67 and a Mega Ball of 14. The next drawing will be Tuesday at 11 p.m. ET.
Some other ticket holders also won some sizable prizes Friday.
Twenty-six tickets won a secondary prize of at least $1 million because they matched the first five numbers.
Six of the 26 tickets won $2 million because the buyers matched not only the first five numbers, but also paid an additional $1 to activate the game’s “multiplier,” which elevates non-jackpot prizes.
The largest jackpot of any US lottery game was $1.586 billion — a Powerball prize from January 13, 2016, shared by winners in California, Florida and Tennessee.
The Mega Millions website on Friday night became inaccessible for several minutes after the drawing. The lottery’s jackpots start at $20 million and grow based on game sales and interest rates, according to its website.
Mega Millions tickets are sold in 45 states, Washington, DC, and the US Virgin Islands, where drawings are on Tuesdays and Fridays at 11 p.m. ET. Tickets are sold online in Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and DC, but the purchaser must be in that state.
CNN’s Aya Elamroussi and Steve Almasy contributed to this report.