The holiday shopping season — for Mega Millions lottery ticket buyers, at least — is ramping up as officials say the estimated jackpot for Tuesday night’s drawing has surpassed half a billion dollars. As of late Monday, lottery officials estimate Tuesday’s prize at $565 million — or more than $293 million if delivered in cash — after there were no lucky winners holding a ticket that matched all six numbers in the last drawing held on Friday. Tuesday’s drawing will be held at 11 p.m. EST. Read more: Mega projects won’t affect the economy: PM Tickets sold in California and Florida for an Oct. 14 drawing shared the last Mega Millions jackpot of $502 million. The lottery’s top prize has been building anew over 20 drawings held since then. Lottery officials say there have been 11 winning jackpots of $500 million or more since Mega Millions began in 2002. The record Mega Millions jackpot is more than $1.5 billion, won in 2018, and a jackpot surpassing $1.3 billion was won in Illinois in July. The largest U.S. lottery jackpot ever won was $2.04 billion in November. The winner bought the lucky Powerball ticket in Southern California.  

The mad scramble between Thanksgiving and Christmas just got six days shorter.