(NEXSTAR) – Ahead of Tuesday night’s drawing, the Mega Millions jackpot has reached an estimated $1.1 billion, the third-largest jackpot ever in the game’s history. If you want to test your luck at starting the year as a billionaire, you may need to hurry up and buy your ticket.
While Mega Millions drawings are held at 11 p.m. ET on Tuesdays and Fridays, depending on where you live, you may have to have your ticket hours beforehand.
For many states, ticket sales are stopped 15 minutes before the drawing time. Those states are Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina (unless you’re buying online), Ohio, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and Washington, as well as the District of Columbia.
In other states, you need to have your ticket one hour before the drawing. That includes Florida, Louisiana, Minnesota, Montana, Oregon, South Carolina, South Dakota, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
Lotteries in these states suspend ticket sales on drawing nights at 8:59 CT/9:59 ET: Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. Three states – Maine, Rhode Island, and Vermont – stop ticket sales at 9:50 p.m. ET.
Here’s when Mega Millions ticket sales end on drawing nights in other states:
- Arizona: 7:59 p.m. local time from November to March.
- Colorado: 7:30 p.m. local time
- Delaware: 9:45 p.m. local time
- Idaho: 1 hour and five minutes before the drawing
- Indiana: 10:44 p.m. local time
- New Hampshire: 9:48 p.m. local time online, 9:50 p.m. in stores
- North Dakota: 8:58 p.m. CT
The next Mega Millions drawing is at 11 p.m. ET Tuesday.