Mega Millions Sticks to Its Lucky Number 13 on September 22 - Jackpot Climbs to $277 Million

Tuesday night's Mega Millions draw came and went without anybody punching their ticket for a life-changing phone call, which means the jackpot keeps doing what it does best: getting bigger and harder to ignore.

The numbers drawn on September 22 were 7, 13, 26, 37, 68, with a Mega Ball of 8. A tidy little spread, honestly - nothing wild, nothing that screams "statistically impossible," just five numbers minding their own business and one Mega Ball tagging along for the ride. If you had 13 in your lineup, at least you got to feel superstitious and validated at the same time.

No ticket matched all six for the top prize, so the jackpot rolls again. The next drawing is now sitting at an estimated $277,000,000, with a cash option of $117,300,000 for anyone who'd rather take the lump sum and skip the annuity math. That's a solid jump from the previous estimate of $261,000,000 ($110,500,000 cash option) - the kind of climb that makes the jackpot ticker look a lot more interesting than it did a few days ago.

Nobody won, the jackpot got bigger, and somewhere a Mega Ball is feeling very smug about being an 8.

It's worth remembering that a rollover isn't a letdown - it's basically the lottery's way of saying "try again, but for more money this time." Every draw without a jackpot winner just shovels more cash onto the pile for the next one, which is exactly how we end up talking about a quarter-billion-dollar prize on a random Tuesday in September.

If you played this drawing, it's worth actually pulling up your ticket and checking it line by line rather than trusting your memory of "I think I had a 7 in there somewhere." Smaller prizes tend to hide in plain sight - a match on the Mega Ball alone, or a couple of main numbers, can still put a little something back in your pocket even when the jackpot escapes. For a no-stress way to go through your numbers, our guide to checking your lottery numbers without losing your mind walks through it step by step.

As for where things stand heading into the next draw: $277 million is the kind of number that tends to wake up ticket sales a bit, especially once it starts showing up on gas station marquees and morning news crawls. Whether it keeps climbing or finally gets claimed is anyone's guess - that's the whole appeal, really. You can check the full history of recent drawings, including this one, over on our Mega Millions results page, and the official numbers and prize breakdowns are always posted straight from the source at megamillions.com.

One quick, low-key reminder as the jackpot keeps growing: play with money you were fine spending anyway, treat it as entertainment rather than a plan, and let the numbers be fun instead of stressful. The jackpot will still be there whether you check obsessively or just glance at it once - no need to lose sleep over 7, 13, 26, 37, 68, or that Mega Ball 8.

So that's the story for September 22 - a clean set of numbers, no big winner, and a jackpot that's now $16 million richer than it was last time we checked in. Not a bad way for a Tuesday drawing to earn its keep.