The Mega Millions jackpot keeps climbing. After Friday's drawing produced no winner, the prize for Tuesday night has jumped to $215 million with a cash option of $98 million.

Not life-changing money for a billionaire, but for the rest of us? That's quit-your-job, buy-an-island, fund-your-grandchildren's-grandchildren money.

The Quick Hit

• What happened: No winner in Friday's $199M drawing; jackpot grows to $215M
• The damage: $2 per ticket, $98M cash option
• Why you should care: Someone has to win eventually—might as well be you
• The move: Tuesday, January 13th at 11 PM ET

Friday's Numbers (That Nobody Hit)

The winning numbers for Friday, January 9th were: 12, 30, 36, 42, 47 with Mega Ball 16.

Nobody matched all six. The jackpot rolls on.

This is how these things build. The Powerball hit $1.8 billion on Christmas Eve and changed someone's life forever. Mega Millions hasn't had that kind of run recently, but $215 million is nothing to sneeze at.

The Math (For the Degenerates Who Care)

Your odds of winning the Mega Millions jackpot are 1 in 302,575,350. That's roughly:

• 10x worse than getting struck by lightning twice
• Better than being elected President of the United States
• About the same as picking a specific grain of sand from a beach

The expected value of a $2 ticket when the jackpot is $215 million is technically negative. You're "losing" money in the long run by playing.

But here's the thing: the lottery isn't about expected value. It's about hope. It's about that 24-48 hours between buying a ticket and the drawing where you get to dream about what you'd do with the money.

That dream is worth $2 to a lot of people.

What Would You Do With $215M?

The cash option is $98 million. After federal taxes (37% top bracket) and state taxes (varies), you're looking at somewhere between $50-65 million depending on where you live.

Fifty million dollars. Cash. In your bank account.

You could:

• Buy a modest casino (or at least a piece of one)
• Fund your sports betting bankroll for approximately forever
• Buy courtside season tickets to every NBA team simultaneously
• Finally stop chasing losses

Or you could do the boring thing and invest it conservatively, live off the interest, and never worry about money again. But that's not very degen of you.

The Streak Continues

Mega Millions hasn't had a jackpot winner since early December. Every drawing without a winner pushes the prize higher. At this pace, we could be looking at $300M+ by the end of January.

For comparison, Powerball just reset to $124 million after last week's $1.8 billion hit. If you're playing the long odds, Mega Millions offers the bigger immediate payday right now.

The Bottom Line

$215 million. Tuesday at 11 PM ET. $2 per ticket.

The odds are astronomical. The expected value is negative. The house (in this case, the multi-state lottery commission) always wins in aggregate.

But someone wins these things eventually. And when you're sitting on a 1-in-300-million shot, rational thinking kind of goes out the window.

Good luck, degenerates. May your numbers be blessed.