If you have purchased a Mega Millions ticket and hope to convert yourself into a millionaire tonight, the time to tune in tonight will be 11 p.m. EST. That is when draw for the $55 million jackpot is set to take place at the studios of WSB-TV, Atlanta's ABC affiliate.

If a lucky winner takes home the jackpot tonight, he or she will have the choice between having the total prize paid out in annual installments over a 29-year period or an immediate payout of a lump sum of $36 million. Before you agonize over that decision, however, you might want to consider that the winning the jackpot are about 1 in 259 million.

Mega Millions drawings take place every Tuesday and Friday, and the draw entry closes at 10:45 p.m. Eastern Time. Tickets to the game are sold in 43 states, the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands -- a total of 45 jurisdictions. And while hitting the jackpot is a true feat, the odds of winning any prize are much better at about 1 in 15.

The lottery's winning numbers from the last drawing on April 14 were 3, 7, 25, 68, 71; the Mega Ball number was 3; and the Megaplier number was 5, according to the game's official website. The estimated jackpot had been $47 million, but no one matched the winning Mega Millions numbers on that day, MLive noted.

In fact, no player so much as achieved the comparatively common feat of matching five numbers to win $1 million or of matching five numbers and the Megaplier to take home between $2 million and $5 million, the website added. Further, no fewer than six drawings have gone by since the last time a participant hit the jackpot on March 24.

On that occasion, the winning ticket was sold in the heart of New York City -- at World Books, just steps from Penn Station, according to Mega Millions. And if you want to find out if you hold a slip worth millions this time around, you can watch a live stream of the drawing at 11 p.m. Eastern Time below.