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Beginning with this Saturday’s draw, the Mega Millions lottery will see four big changes. If you happen to live in one of the 6 states in America where the Mega Millions isn’t available, I apologize, this article isn’t for you. If you live in one of the 44 states where the Mega Millions offers up astronomically large jackpots and you daydream about one day winning hundreds of millions of dollars and living out your days on a beach in St. Tropez then there’s some information below about the changes that you’ll want to commit to memory.
The largest Mega Millions jackpot to date was $640 million back on March 30, 2012. The largest recent jackpot from the Mega Millions lottery was a $540 million jackpot, the third largest ever, which happened last year (July 8, 2016). I’m making note of these record jackpots because the Mega Millions jackpots are about to get larger.
Four changes are coming to Mega Millions this Saturday (October 28th, 2017). One major change is (1) larger starting jackpots. The Mega Millions has historically started with a jackpot of $15 million. Beginning this Saturday, the Mega Millions jackpot will start at $40 million. In theory, this will lead to record jackpots happening more frequently.
The second major change is the (2) cost of Mega Millions tickets. The price of tickets is moving from $1 to $2. This is if you want to buy a ticket for the full jackpot with the Mega Ball in play. You’ll still be able to buy tickets for $1 to try and win lesser prizes.
If you’re annoyed by the change in price then I have some good news. The third change is a (3) new ticket option. For $3 you can buy a Quick Pick that will get you two entries (two tickets) into the main jackpot. So, it’s basically $1.50/ticket but you don’t get to pick your numbers.
The final change to take notice of is (4) different odds are coming to the Mega Millions. Currently, in order to win the Mega Millions jackpot prize a player must match 5 white balls and the Mega Ball. There are 75 white balls number 1-75, and 25 Mega Balls number 1-25. Beginning on Saturday, the number of white balls is decreasing to 70 but the number of Mega Balls is increasing to 35. Previously, your odds of matching all numbers and winning the Mega Millions jackpot was around 1-in-259 million but those odds will be around 1-in-303 million after the new Mega Balls are added.
Once these changes go into effect on Saturday, this will mark the 6th iteration of the Mega Millions lottery which began in 1996, and the first time it has made changes since 2013. For more on these changes to the Mega Millions jackpot you can head on over to ABC 7.