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One thing about winning the lottery, it turns you into a instant celebrity. When you walk down the street, people know your name. Past acquaintances come out of the woodwork, some looking for a slice of the pie or maybe a small loan. News crews, reporters and magazines come knocking to find out who the new lottery star is. And these lucky winners? Often they are not prepared for this instantaneous fame and fortune. Are you? Did you will the $312 million dollar jackpot?  Here are the numbers:

The Mega Millions winning lottery numbers drawn on Friday night were:  22, 24, 31, 52 and 54. The Mega Ball is 4.

After two consecutive weeks with no jackpot winners, Friday's Mega Millions lottery offers a big payout -- $312 million dollars.

The jackpot is the sixth largest in California history.

Higher-than-expected ticket sales boosted the prize from $304, the figure that was previously announced.

With the jackpot at $244 million, folks lined up to buy their Mega Millions tickets, but the odds of winning is just 1 in 175,000,000

“Mega-small odds of winning Mega Millions 3-22-11? is categorized as “local”. This video was licensed from Grab Networks. For additional video content, click the “video” tab at the top of this page.

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WOIO - How would you like to add a couple million to your bank account??

It could happen, you if try your luck at winning tonight's mind-blowing Mega Millions jackpot worth $244M dollars.

No one matched all six numbers in Friday night's drawing, so the purse was pushed up to over $240M. Not bad!

Don't forget to tune into to 19 Action News tonight at 11PM for the highly-anticipated winning numbers.

Hopeful lottery players are gaining millions of reason to dream again as the jackpot in tonight’s Mega Millions drawing stands at $172 million. A winner would have the choice to take annual payments of roughly $6 million for the next 26 years or take it all at once with a cash option lump-sum payment of $108.9 million. No one has won the jackpot since Feb. 1, therefore the jackpot has been rolling over every week since then. You should check your ticket now!

New Jersey's lottery players will be thinking green two days before St. Patrick’s Day. A whole lot of green.

The grand prize in Tuesday’s Mega millions drawing stands at $172 million. A winner would have the choice to take annual payments of roughly $6 million for 26 years or walk away with a cash option lump-sum payment of $108.9 million.

In this past Friday night's Mega Millions drawing, there was no jackpot winner, but according to lotterypost.com, 11 lucky players matched the first 5 numbers for a $250,000 prize, one of them coming from New Jersey.

The 40-year-old New Jersey Lottery outdoes many other states’ comparable operations in sales and in the amount of revenue it provides to the state. In 2010, despite a poor economy that has hurt casino and racetrack gambling, the state lottery broke all of its previous revenue records.

MEGA MILLIONS WINNING NUMBERS FOR TUESDAY, MARCH 15, 2011:

10, 11, 12, 28, 43 and Mega ball 45

In June 2010 the state Treasury Department and acting director of the state Lottery Commission, Carole Hedinger announced that total profits for the previous 12 months had exceeded $2.6 billion for the first time.

Not all states shared such good fortune: The Press of Atlantic City reported last year that a study by the Rockefeller Institute for Government, based in New York, found in the same period that some lotteries, such as those in Oregon and West Virginia, lost as much as 15 percent of their revenue. Neighboring Pennsylvania, which has expanded casino gambling, saw a drop last year, too, of about $22 million, or nearly 1 percent of revenue.

But money can create just as many problems as it solves if you’re not careful. There are too many stories of people winning the lottery which turn into nightmares.

Craig Wallace, a senior funding officer for a company that buys lottery annuity payments in exchange for lump sums, told bankrate.com, "In New Jersey, they manipulate the reality of the situation to sell more tickets. Each winner takes a picture with a check that becomes a 3-foot by 5-foot stand-up card. The winner is photographed standing next to a beautiful woman and the caption reads: 'New Jersey's newest millionaire.'"

Evelyn Adams won the New Jersey twice in 1985 and 1986, for a total of $5.4 million. Today the money is all gone and Adams lives in a trailer.

"Everybody wanted my money. Everybody had their hand out. I never learned one simple word in the English language — 'No,' said Adams.

Tuesday's Mega Millions jackpot will be the 12th drawing since the last jackpot prize winner. If no one wins on Tuesday, Friday’s Mega millions drawing could conceivably approach $200 million.