With a $1.35-billion jackpot, Friday the 13th could be lucky day for Mega Millions players

After Tuesday’s Mega Millions lottery drawing yielded one ticket worth almost $4 million sold in Hacienda Heights but no jackpot winner, lottery players are hoping Friday the 13th will be their lucky day.

Park’s Liquor Store on South 7th Ave. recently sold a mega millions ticket worth $4 million, in Hacienda Heights on Friday.

(Raul Roa/Los Angeles Times)

The $1.35-billion payout for Friday‘s 8 p.m. drawing would be the second-largest ever, behind a $1.537 billion prize won in South Carolina in October 2018.

A jackpot winner Friday night would be the seventh ever to win on Friday the 13th, according to Mega Millions.

At Joe’s Service Center in Altadena, where a still-unclaimed $2.04-billion jackpot-winning ticket for the Powerball lottery was sold in November, crowds lined up to buy Mega Millions tickets, sensing luck in the air.

An employee who answered the phone at the service station Friday morning said he didn’t have time to talk due to the frenzy. “You’ve got to call back after the Mega Millions,” he said, hanging up before giving his name.

Back in November, Joe’s employees were philosophical about the previous Powerball winner.

“I’m hoping the person who won is actually from the community, so that way they know the struggles of the people around here and they can give back,” Danny Chahayed, son of owner Joe Chahayed, said at the time.

Despite the excitement around the lottery payout, the odds of winning the Mega Millions jackpot remain incredibly slim.

The jackpot odds — around 1 in 300 million — have been compared in the past to those of being struck by lightning twice in a lifetime or being hospitalized by a bathroom sink injury twice in the same year.

The Mega Millions jackpot has grown to more than $1 billion dollars, with a ticket shown from 168 Market in Hacienda Heights on Friday.

(Raul Roa/Los Angeles Times)

Boston Children’s Hospital cites the odds of polydactyly, a condition in which a baby is born with one or more extra fingers, as between 1 in 500 and 1 in 1,000 in the U.S.

The odds, then, of picking three babies at random in the country and each having an extra finger are between 1 in 125 million and 1 in 1 billion, comparable to winning the Mega Millions jackpot.