Lottery

Billion-dollar paydays are more likely now — but that doesn't mean you're more likely to win one. Lotteries are "a purely entertainment product," an expert tells NPR.

The Mega Millions prize has grown again to an estimated $1.35 billion after there was no winner of the lottery's latest giant jackpot. The prize for the next drawing is Friday night.

Spain kicked off the festive period Thursday with the celebration of one of its most iconic events, the bumper Christmas lottery that is the world's richest for the total prize money involved.

Monday's Powerball drawing was delayed after one participating lottery needed more time to carry out security procedures. The jackpot had ballooned over three months without a winner.

With no Powerball winner announced on Wednesday, the prize has grown even larger to $1.5 billion ahead of the next drawing on Saturday night.

There were no big treats from the Halloween night Powerball drawing, meaning the next drawing Wednesday night will be for a massive $1.2 billion jackpot.

No one won an estimated $700 million Powerball jackpot Wednesday night, meaning the big prize will grow to an estimated $800 million for the next drawing, the fifth-largest in U.S. history.

A winning lottery ticket worth a share of a $494 million Mega Millions jackpot was purchased in a southwest Florida city hammered by Hurricane Ian.

Most states do not currently grant anonymity to lottery winners. Some lawmakers have tried to change that in recent years out of growing privacy and safety concerns.

Winning over a quarter million dollars was easy for an undocumented 28-year-old Algerian man in Belgium. Getting his winnings has proven to be a challenge spanning two continents.

LaQuedra Edwards had put $40 into a lottery vending machine at a supermarket in Los Angeles when "some rude person" bumped into her, causing her to buy a different lottery ticket than she intended.

So far the government has distributed nearly 400,000 doses of Evusheld, a new drug that protects against COVID-19. Some 7 million Americans could benefit from the drug right away.