If the winner is older, the lump sum may be the better choice, Love said. “If you accept the lump sum, you get all the money at one time, you get to invest the money however you want it to be invested, and you’re paying tax at a time when the effective tax rate is the lowest in a generation,” he said.

“We know that many people will likely receive tickets to Friday’s drawing as holiday gifts, and what a gift that would turn out to be if you ended up with a ticket worth a $1.15 billion jackpot,” Joshua Johnston, lead director for the Mega Millions Consortium, said in a news release before the jackpot rose again to $1.22 billion.

The Mega Millions jackpot had gone unclaimed since Sept. 10, when a Texas player hit the $810 million grand prize, lottery officials said. To score the jackpot in the Mega Millions, a player must match all five white balls and the gold Mega Ball. The odds of scoring a jackpot prize are 1 in 302,575,350.

The winning numbers were 3, 7, 37, 49 and 55. The Mega Ball was 6. The jackpot is the fifth-biggest ever in the Mega Millions lotteries.

As the Mega Millions jackpot continues to rise to higher and higher numbers, here is what you need to know ahead of the next drawing.

After three months without anyone winning the top prize in the lottery, a ticket worth an estimated $1.22 billion was sold in California for the drawing Friday night, according to the Mega Millions website.