A New Jersey lottery player closed out the year with a bang by winning $1 million in the Mega Millions drawing on Tuesday. The Jersey ticket, along with tickets Florida and Minnesota, matched the five balls to win the second-tier million-dollar prize ...

It wasn't the Mega Millions billion-dollar jackpot, but a lucky New Jersey lottery player also won a jackpot on Friday - a $494,401 Jersey Cash 5 jackpot. The New Jersey Lottery announced Monday that a Burlington County ticket matched the five balls to win.

There were nearly 500 lottery players who won at least $10,000 in prizes last year - at least one in every county in the state.

The winner in the March billion-dollar drawing came forward Monday as the Christmas Even drawing nears $950 million.

“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.

Twenty-four lottery players in New Jersey won $10,000 or more last week playing Powerball, Mega Millions and New Jersey Lottery games.

A New Yorker has stepped up to claim a $1 million Mega Millions prize, according to New York Lottery officials. Adam Terzuoli, of Washingtonville, in Orange County, has claimed a $1,000,000 second prize for matching the first five Mega Millions numbers drawn on Sept.