Mega Millions $1.6 billion drawing tonight: When is drawing? Time, how to watch

Someone could become a billionaire tonight.

The drawing for the Mega Millions $1.6 billion - that's with a "b" - jackpot is tonight (Oct. 23). The $1.6 billion eclipses the $1.586 billion Powerball drawing held in January 2016, making tonight's jackpot the biggest ever.

The drawing is held at 11 p.m. ET and you can watch live here.

You can also see your state's feed of drawing here. (unless you're in Alabama, Alaska, Hawaii, Mississippi, Nevada or Utah - no lotteries there).

Tickets cost $2 each and cutoff times for sales vary from state to state but are generally an hour before the drawing.

You can go here to see where you can purchase your tickets.

Players pick six numbers from two separate pools of numbers - five different numbers from 1 to 70 and one number from 1 to 25 or select Easy Pick/Quick Pick to let the computer do the work for you. You win the jackpot by matching all six winning numbers in a drawing.

Even if you don't win the top jackpot, you may still bring home so money - prizes start at $2. Chances of winning the top prize are 1 in 302 million. If you do win, you can opt for the full amount paid out over 29 years or take the cash payout at $904 million.

The last Mega Millions jackpot hit was in the drawing held July 24, 2018, when a group of 11 co-workers in California shared a $543 million prize. There have been 25 drawings without a jackpot winner since then, but there have been more than 34.4 million winning tickets sold across the game's nine prize levels. The jackpot starts at $40 million and grows by a minimum of $5 million per draw each time it rolls over.

The winning numbers for the Oct. 19 drawing were the white balls 15, 23, 53, 65 and 70, plus the gold Mega Ball 7. While there was no jackpot winner on Friday, there were 15 second-tier winning tickets of at least $1 million, sold in California, Florida, Illinois (two), Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York (four), Texas (two, including one with the Megaplier for a $2 million prize) and Virginia (two). These tickets matched the five white balls but missed matching the Mega Ball.

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