The Mega Millions jackpot climbed to an estimated $530 million after no one won Tuesday’s drawing, creating what could be the lottery’s seventh-largest jackpot ever.

The next drawing will take place at 11 p.m. Eastern on Friday.

The Mega Millions jackpot has been growing since mid-March and is the lottery’s largest jackpot since October, when it swelled to $1.537 billion. It ranks just behind the $533 million jackpot won in March 2018.

That estimated $530 million is the amount awarded if the annuity option, with payments spread out over 30 payments, is chosen; the cash option would pay out an estimated $343.9 million all at once, all before taxes.

A jackpot is shared if there are multiple winning tickets.

Read about an even bigger jackpot:‘El Gordo’ and its $2.4 billion jackpot draw crowds to Spain’s luckiest lottery shop

The rival Powerball jackpot is at $40 million after a $344.6 million jackpot was won on June 2. The next drawing is at 10:59 p.m. Eastern on Saturday. Powerball holds the record for the largest U.S. jackpot at $1.586 billion jackpot, shared among three winning tickets on Jan. 13, 2016.

The odds of winning Mega Millions are 1 in nearly 303 million, and those for Powerball are about 1 in 292 million. Sadly, you are more likely to die or kill someone while driving two miles to buy your Powerball ticket. Or to be attacked by a shark.

Put another way, even if every adult in the U.S. purchased one ticket, each with a different number, there would still be a good chance — about 7% — that no winner would emerge in a given drawing, and the pot would thus grow larger.

What has worse odds? Picking a perfect March Madness bracket. That’s 1 in 9.2 quintillion.

Read:Here’s what you should do when you don’t win the Mega Millions jackpot

In both Powerball and Mega Millions, a jackpot is won by correctly picking the numbers on all five white balls drawn (69 choices in Powerball, 70 in Mega Millions) as well as the correct number on the sixth ball (26 red choices in Powerball, 25 gold choices in Mega Millions).

Tickets for each lottery start at $2.

5 simple steps to reach $1 million

Both the annuity and cash options have tax implications and consequences for any winner’s long-term financial goals.

Financial advisers have plenty to say about what to do with the winnings: for example, these five must-dos after winning a lottery

Also:Why you still shouldn’t buy any lottery tickets

Experts also have strong views on not wasting money buying a lot of tickets, given the vanishingly slim odds. Some of the biggest buyers of what many describe as a voluntary tax are low-income earners, as MarketWatch has reported. That makes it a regressive tax, effectively, in critics’ view. Others make the case that investing in the S&P 500 index SPX, +1.59% and Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +1.33% or other longer-term investments are better ways to put your money to work.

And even if you win a big lottery prize, life doesn’t always turn into a happily-ever-after story, as one $19 million winner can attest. (Cue wasteful spending leading to bankruptcy ... and even bank robberies and prison time.)

Now read:Want to win the Powerball? These numbers come up more than others and These 5 Mega Millions numbers come up most often