There’s a reason you didn’t win the Mega Millions jackpot. It’s harder than you think
You’re not imagining things: It has always been extremely unlikely to win a Mega Millions jackpot, but it is even more improbable than ever to win the top prize these days.
No one won Friday night’s $1.4 billion Mega Millions jackpot, which brings the next possible jackpot up to a record $1.6 billion — and it could still go much higher before Tuesday’s drawing.
That just beat the current record $1.586 billion Powerball jackpot that had three winning tickets in January 2016.
So why do the jackpots keep growing to such astronomical figures?
Of course, it’s because more people are buying tickets than ever before, which inflates those jackpots.
But, also, the odds have changed on you.
Lottery officials changed the odds in recent years to lessen the chance of winning a jackpot, which in turn increased the opportunity for top prizes to reach stratospheric levels.
Officials did that by changing the potential number combinations, the Associated Press reported. which for Mega Millions increased the odds of winning the jackpot from one in 259 million to one in 302.5 million in October 2017.
“The odds of winning are calculated by combining the odds for both sets of numbers for all prize levels. The odds for the ninth prize level — for matching just the Mega Ball — are calculated by combining the odds of selecting the Mega Ball and the odds of not selecting any of the five numbers from the first set of numbers drawn,” according to the Mega Millions FAQ page.
And last year, to go along with the longer odds to win, Mega Millions doubled the price of a single ticket from $1 to $2, so you’re paying more to more likely lose, according to CNN Money. The odds of winning any prize, according to the Mega Millions website, are one in 24. And the smallest prize is $2.
It would cost you $605 million to buy 302.5 million Mega Millions tickets at $2 a pop to best insure your chances at scoring that one winning ticket by matching all six numbers. And can you imagine how long it would take you to check the numbers on 302 million tickets? Talk about the proverbial needle in a haystack.
Last October, Mega Millions introduced a $3 ticket option, which gives players two chances at the jackpot. But “the $3 ticket holder is only eligible to win the jackpot prize, not the secondary prizes that range from $1 up to $1 million or more,” CNN Money reported. This made a Mega Millions ticket a one in 24 chance of being a winner of some amount when it used to be one in 14.7 odds.
Mega Millions is available in 44 states, including Florida, and in the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands. It is not played in Alaska, Hawaii, Nevada, Utah, Alabama or Mississippi.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
Follow @HowardCohen on Twitter.
This story was originally published October 20, 2018 at 5:02 PM.