MABLETON, Ga. — The Mega Millions jackpot sits at a whopping $1.35 billion Thursday.
That amount of money could be a game-changer for the lucky winner, but the lottery is already making a difference in the lives of millions of students in Georgia.
People flocked to a Shell gas station on Floyd Road in Mableton to buy hopefully buy a winning ticket. The store sold the winning $116 million ticket back in 2010.
Every ticket purchased also helps students win.
The game's sales partially go toward funding educational efforts for pre-K and college students.
One lottery customer, Frank, says he’s hoping to win big but also buys tickets because of how the lottery proceeds are used to help students.
“It promotes and perpetuates education in our school systems because lots of students are given scholarships. I have a granddaughter that has benefited from the HOPE Scholarship," said Frank.
According to state lottery officials, since the jackpot started growing through Tuesday’s drawing, it has generated more than $23.4 million for HOPE and pre-K, and Georgia Lottery players have won $5.7 million in Mega Millions prizes.
Since its inception in 1993, the Georgia Lottery Corporation has returned more than $26.8 billion to the state of Georgia for education. More than 2.1 million students have benefited from Georgia’s HOPE Program. Additionally, more than 2 million 4-year-olds have attended Georgia Lottery-funded Pre-K.
“We know that over two million Georgia students have gone to college as a part of the Hope scholarship and Hope grant, the Zell Millier scholarship and grant. We also know that over two million 4-year-olds have gone to Georgia Pre-K," Georgia Lottery CEO Gretchen Corbin said.
Corbin says jackpots are getting noticeably bigger these days because of a change lottery officials made in recent years.
“We went from one dollar to two dollars and we did that because we heard our players saying we want larger jackpots. So we did a matrix change that would allow for larger jackpots.," said Corbin.
Thursday's drawing happens at 11 p.m. The odds of winning the grand prize are one in over 302,000,000.