Around midnight on Halloween, somebody could become very happy.
And we're not talking Twixt-acy or blood-thirsty werewolves.
We're talking money-hungry lottery players.
Tuesday night, the Mega Millions jackpot rolled over for the 19th straight drawing, rising to $284 million for the annuity, $172 million for the cash.
That's the 10th biggest cash prize ever for the game.
Nobody matched all the numbers drawn -- 3, 50, 57, 58 and 60, with a Mega Ball of 11. A single Missouri ticket was the biggest winner, matching the first five to win $1 million.
[Thursday update: Wednesday night, the Powerball jackpot rose to $159 million, $99.9 million cash, when no one hit all the numbers: 25, 28, 48, 57 and 59, with a Powerball of 16. New York and California each sold a ticket that matched the first five.]
At 11 p.m. Friday, Mega Millions will pick its next numbers, and if anybody checking their tickets gets devilishly lucky, neighbors might hear shrieks of joy.
It could take a few hours before the rest of us know whether the jackpot will rise again, letting November usher in a new round of lottery fever -- and hopes of a happy Thanksgiving.
From March 2012 to last March, Mega Millions and Powerball had a series of eight mind-boggling jackpots worth $399 million to $656 million, rewriting the record books for annuity and cash prizes for each game.
See: "Biggest jackpots in U.S. lottery history"
In the last six months, though, not one jackpot has topped $300 million, which is about the threshold when ticket-buying whips into a frenzy.
After Mega Millions reached $270 million in March, it needed only three more drawings to soar to $414 million.
Halloween might see this jackpot turn into a a monster.
For more, go to Mega Millions' website.
Contact staff writer Peter Mucha at 215-854-4342 or pmucha@phillynews.com. Follow @petemucha on Twitter.