Megaplier to be expanded
The Mega Millions multi-state lottery game is being redesigned to offer bigger starting jackpots and better overall odds beginning Oct. 22.
(First reported by Lottery Post in May: Mega Millions multi-state lottery to get harder to win in Oct., May 20, 2013.)
"The updated Mega Millions game will offer a starting jackpot of $15 million, up from the current $12 million, and will grow by at least $5 million every time the jackpot rolls," said Pennsylvania Lottery Executive Director Todd Rucci. "Adding to the excitement, purchasing the expanded Megaplier option will allow non-jackpot prizes to be multiplied by a factor of five — up from the current maximum of four."
This change to the Megaplier option will increase the top, non-jackpot prize to $5 million, Rucci noted.
The ticket price will remain $1. The Megaplier option price also will remain $1.
Under the new Mega Millions game matrix, the overall odds of winning any Mega Millions prize will improve to 1-in-14.71 from 1-in-40, making an estimated three times as many winners.
The overall odds of winning the game's jackpot will change to 1-in-258,890,850 from the current 1-in-175,711,536. This change is expected to lead to larger jackpot growth.
Players in the redesigned game will choose their first five numbers from a pool of 75, up from the current 56. The group of numbers in the Mega Ball pool will shrink from 46 to 15.
Mega Millions tickets normally may be purchased up to 13 weeks (26 draws) in advance. However, to prepare for these changes, the Pennsylvania Lottery must temporarily limit the game's advance play feature.
After the July 23 drawing, the number of advance draws available for purchase will continue to decrease by one until Oct. 18, the last Mega Millions drawing under the current game design.
Mega Millions tickets for the updated version of the game will go on sale beginning Oct. 19. At that time, players will again be able to purchase up to 13 weeks (26 draws) of advance-play tickets.
The overall odds of winning the game's jackpot will change to 1-in-258,890,850 from the current 1-in-175,711,536. This change is expected to lead to larger jackpot growth. Florida finally get Mega Millions and then they decide to increase the odds. I will just stick to playing the regularFlorida Lottery games with better odds like Lotto, Mega Money and Fantasy 5.
Why not think of it as lowering your odds of winning your dollar back instead of increasing your odds of being a multi-millionaire.
The odds against matching 5 + 0 became four times harder, but once that happens, the odds against winning the jackpot are much better. It goes without saying players are after the jackpot, but with odds of 40 to 1 against winning anything, they can almost expect to win nothing. At least the new format gives a $5 player a 3 to 1 chance of at least winning a buck.
So if you get 5 wb & you megaply you win $5 million
Mega Millions tickets normally may be purchased up to 13 weeks (26 draws) in advance. However, to prepare for these changes, the Pennsylvania Lottery must temporarily limit the game's advance play feature.
After the July 23 drawing, the number of advance draws available for purchase will continue to decrease by one until Oct. 18, the last Mega Millions drawing under the current game design.
Mega Millions tickets for the updated version of the game will go on sale beginning Oct. 19. At that time, players will again be able to purchase up to 13 weeks (26 draws) of advance-play tickets.
so is this just for pennsylvania or is it for everyone? they do not say. while pennsylvania redues their machines can players in other states still play the advanced draws?
No not really only if the mega plier ball says 5 then you get 5million. if it says 4 you get 4million if it says 3 you get 3million all the way to i think 2 for two million. this is my best guess for you.
I haven't seen specifics on the new MM for 2nd prize megaplier yet.
Currently with MM, the 3rd-9th prizes are multiplied by the megaplier value, but the 2nd prize is always megaplied 4X $250,000 = $1,000,000.
Will the new MM be *always* $5M for megaplier 2nd prize (5X) or will it actually be $1M times the megaplier value? This still needs to be clarified.
Wow! How sneaky. This is actually going to be a better version than the current one. I can't believe how many people have missed this.
I'm not going to explain why. I figured it out and you can too.
This is BS...I have already stopped buying MM.
Besides avid lotto players, they know most people who will buy the MM tix will have no clue the odds have increased so much.
Come on now, you really never expected to recoup your loses with out winning a jackpot, did you? You can still win a jackpot with the new matrix while losing less per play.
I've already boycotted!
Does it really matters what the odds are when asked about them half of the average players think they are one in a billion already.
Yep, you probably can't judge how well the new MM game will do based on the more informed subset of responses of LP members.
This change has more to do with psychology than it does with statistics. Giving more money and more winners to lower tier prizes to provide encouragement, pumping up the megaplier to a juicy $5M to entice more megaplier sales. While there will be fewer winning jackpots per year, most people won't care.
It's all states. In Idaho you can only purchase 5 weeks ahead, so it'll start later, but the end result in all states is that you can only purchase tickets under the current matrix up until the day it changes over. Then you can buy tickets with the new expanded matrix.
CBF:
but, only avid stupid players will B "LEFT"!
Yep, winning a jackpot only matter to those who win them. Winning that dollar is going mean more to players than whether someone they don't know and never will know becomes a multi-millionare.
Yeah, and did you know there is a Santa Barbara in Honduras?
Increasing the jackpot odds by an astonishing 83 million – from 175,711,536 to 258,890,850? LOL
Everyone we know plays for the jackpot – not the lower tier prizes, so it doesn’t matter what the overall odds will be.
Before these changes the jackpot odds were already ridiculously long. We seldom played the game and we've never won anything.
Now with the odds being 83 million longer, it doesn’t matter how big the jackpots get. They can keep it because we absolutely will not play. Greed has gotten the best of the people who run MM.
We, and other people we know, stopped playing MM in May when the initial announcement was made that the jackpot odds were getting substantially worse.
We know this will sound odd to people, but we don’t aspire to win an outrageous-sized jackpot, so we made a point not to play when the jackpot was big.
The bottom line is that we don’t let the hype and greed drive our lotto purchases. We’re perfectly okay with winning $5 million or so after taxes.
Lol. Good point
Good point, RJOh. Sounds like they're targeting the average player with this, too. They really think players are chumps:
Megaplier to be expanded
The Mega Millions multi-state lottery game is being redesigned to offer bigger starting jackpots and better overall odds beginning Oct. 22.
The overall odds of winning the game's jackpot will change to 1-in-258,890,850 from the current 1-in-175,711,536. This change is expected to lead to larger jackpot growth.
Players in the redesigned game will choose their first five numbers from a pool of 75, up from the current 56. The group of numbers in the Mega Ball pool will shrink from 46 to 15.
Don't care what they do. I'll always see it as a 1:1 chance. Win or you don't. When PB went from 195 to 175, the jackpots still went up. It did'nt get easier. Most of the time i don't even hit a 1:3 odd scratcher.
Come to think of of it, I can't wait to see the first post about a system for a 75 number matrix.
I quit playing Powerball a long time ago and I really don't play Mega Millions anymore either. The change to the game will make it easier not to buy tickets.
I do like the fact that they offer a million dollars for second prize but the odds stink for that as well.
Now instead of odds like being stuck by lightning while being eaten by a bear, it's more like being struck by lightning while being eat by a bear while in the middle of Death Valley when it is raining!
I was once a fan of big jackpots........but now its just getting ridiculous, how can you take a game with with impossible odds of winning and make the odds worse and try to sell that. At some point our elected officials have to step in and stop this nonsense. It's getting way it out of hand. I know at the end of the day it is my my decision to play but I would like someone who represents the people to stand up and say look this isnt right. I would rather there be 100 Million dollar winners than 1 one hundred million dollar winner any day of the week. Rather than focusing on bigger jackpots the lottery should be focused on making more millionaires. I'm sure the majority of players would agree.
Eventually people will wise up about MM new ridiculous odds, and when they do I suspect increasing numbers of people will migrate to playing PB instead. After all, the PB jackpots will still be large enough for a person to live comfortably and while still long their odds of winning will be better too.
Well without getting into which game has better odds at each level, please keep this in mind pb players. The new mm game will still have better jackpot odds for a $2 bet which would be somewhere in the vicinity of 125 million to 1 compared to pb at 175 million to one. Food for thought.
I think they will ultimately be accused of cheating in order to keep all the big money and giving crumbs.
Since PB costs $2 and MM still only costs $1, it's pretty much a tossup between them. I'll probably opt to pay $1 less instead of playing the slightly better odds of PB.
I'll simplify my last reply. Pb has better jackpot odds for one line of play while mm has better jackpot odds for same amount of money played. Hope that clears it up a bit.
LOL You're no statistician.
Really somewhere In the vicinity of 125 million to 1 compared to 175 million to 1.....all sense is lost when someone tries to rationalise those odds. They both are impossible In my opinion to win at this point.
Is anyone really a fan of having politicians take over running the lotteries? Have you seen their changes? Pay out less prize money so profits will go up. Not really the best marketing strategy.
Lots of folks do urge lotteries to give away one hundred $1 million prizes instead of a $100 million jackpot. But then, those folks don't play for $1 million prizes. That prize level doesn't gets many folks off the couch. There are already games out there that offer prizes of that size. There are people who love those games, but they don't bring in the numbers of players that MM or PB can attract.
Does anyone know that PB already agrees that there should be more winners of $1 million and $2 million? Does anyone know that PB creates 400 to 500 millionaires every year in the New Powerball game? Probably not. Few folks care, unless they win that prize.
In fact, if PB decided to award only $1 million prizes, the game would quickly collapse into a smaller game (the kind that now exist) and it would NOT be able to create the 400 to 500 millionaires each year.
The jackpot odds in these games are such that winning is a matter of fate; not a matter of "strategy". You can "play" for other prizes at lower odds, but for the jackpot, you can only get in the game and wait to see if the Universe thinks it's your turn. The new MM jackpot odds can be expected to drop one, maybe two winners, per year (going from about 12 jackpot hits per year into the 10 to 11 range (on average).
Ninety nine point five percent of players don't care about odds, only the size of the jackpot and price of a ticket.
Since I play the same string of numbers on both Powerball and Mega Millions, I don't care if the odds go to 1 billion to 1.
I think it's exciting.
And I'm glad the price stays the same.
Only 15 Mega Balls huh?
At least that way when MM draws a winning combination with any numbers in the range of 60-75, you'll know if anyone won the jackpot, it wasn't you.
Got it thanks JBL
Theirs one born every minute.I think it was P.T.Barnum who first said this.
Well lots and lots of interesting point but surprisingly people play big jackpots just for the day dream of it not actually believing to win. To make my point even thoes that won when the odds were lower don't even remember to check thier winning ticket but they always remember to line up arround the block and play just like everyone else. Before you are more likely to be struck by lightining and now you are more likely to p..p a live monkey in the toilet. But again many women give birth without even knowing they are pregnant so some good chance you can still beat that new odd. Mega million is desperate because they are being crushed by powerball success but mega million has a new trick up its sleeves to come back and be noticed. Mega millions always break the usa lottery record and with this new plan mega million will be the first to reach a one billion dollar jackport by christmas because people won't be able to win it easily. And yes there is still going to be lucky quick picks even if the odds are one in a billion don't mess with florida quick pick machines they are still the best in the world in cracking any new game so i won't be surprise if the first winner of the new game comes from Miami florida thoes folks there are amazing.lol
"You can still win a jackpot with the new matrix while losing less per play."
Right now they expect to pay out 50 cents for every dollar that take in. With the new matrix they'll expect to pay out 50 cents for every dollar they take in. Don't be fooled just because your odds of winning the minimum prize will be better. There's no such thing as a free lunch.
With the current game when they collect $175 million they pay $87.5 million back to the winners. With the new game they'll collect $258 million and pay back $129 million. That's almost 1.5 times as much money, but it will be split by almost 3 times as many winners. That means that the average prize will be half of what it is now.
If you pick your own numbers, I wonder how many bets will be on the bet slip?
It's hard enough to pick your own on the current slips. Maybe 2 or 3 on a slip?
Or maybe they want people to just play auto picks.