Proposed changes are official
Updated with additional prize details
By Kate Northrop
Mega Millions has officially confirmed that several new game changes are on the way, including a ticket price increase from $2 to $5.
The Mega Millions Consortium has announced that it is preparing for a "mega" overhaul, with plans for game enhancements coming April 2025.
Back in June, Lottery Post reported on proposed changes to the game that were initially made public by the Montana Lottery in a commission meeting. While many of the specifics discussed in the meeting, such as the prize structure and number matrix, were technically unofficial and subject to change, a game revamp is definitely coming.
Starting in April 2025, ticket prices will increase from $2 to $5. According to Mega Millions, it is the game's second price adjustment since the first ticket was sold more than 20 years ago and the first change since the current game matrix was adopted in 2017.
Additionally, the Megaplier will no longer be optional — it will automatically be added to every play and offers a chance to improve non-jackpot prizes by 2X, 3X, 4X, 5X, or 10X, up to $10 million.
The Mega Millions Consortium also announced better odds of winning the jackpot. Although the Consortium did not provide prize structures and odds in this week's announcement, the Montana Lottery revealed in a September commission meeting that the new odds are 1 in 290 million down from 1 in 302.5 million.
In the same meeting, the Montana Lottery revealed that one number will be removed from the Mega Ball number matrix, confirming our estimate that the new Mega Ball number matrix would be reduced to 1 through 24.
There will be no breakeven prizes, meaning that the lowest-tier prize will be more than the cost of the ticket. The new overall odds of winning any prize are 1 in 23.07.
While the odds of winning have changed at every prize tier, the Montana Lottery's presentation shows that only the two lowest prize tiers have changed monetary prize amounts. The base prize has increased from $2 to $5, and the second lowest-tier prize has increased from $4 to $7. To account for the automatically added Megaplier, those amounts will beget a prize ranging from $10 to $50 and $14 to $70, respectively.
See the Montana Lottery presentation slide below for the full prize chart, including the range of prizes that can be won at each prize level and other detailed financial information about each prize level.
The starting jackpot will also increase, a positive change that players have been asking for since the pandemic. Currently, the jackpot resets to $20 million every time it is won. Although the new starting jackpot amount was not listed in the Mega Millions Consortium's announcement, the Montana Lottery confirmed a $50 million figure in their September commission meeting.
Lastly, Mega Millions anticipates bigger and faster growing jackpots occurring more frequently as a result of the changes. The Montana Lottery revealed that the estimated average jackpot win will increase from $456 million to $803 million.
"We are creating a game that both our existing players and people new to Mega Millions will love and get excited about playing," Mega Millions Consortium Lead Director Joshua Johnston said in a press release. "We expect more billion-dollar jackpots than ever before, meaning creating more billionaires and many more millionaires as the jackpots climb, plus this game will continue the important legacy of supporting great causes everywhere Mega Millions is played."
As we get closer to the game re-launch in the Spring, there will be more information about the game enhancements coming to light, the Mega Millions media team advised Lottery Post.
The Montana Lottery stated in their September meeting that the new game rules are not in effect until sales of the new game begin April 5, 2025, and with the drawing on April 8, 2025. Until then, the current game rules will remain.
More than 1,200 Mega Millions players have become millionaires since the last game update in 2017, according to the Consortium, averaging 3 new millionaires per week.
Since the game's inception in 2002, the multi-state game has produced six winners of billion-dollar jackpots. The last time a billion-dollar jackpot was won was in March, when one single ticket sold at ShopRite Liquor in Neptune Township, New Jersey laid claim to the entire $1.13 billion prize. The winner has yet to come forward to claim the unimaginable stack of cash.
A trust in Texas was the last winner to claim a Mega Millions jackpot at $800 million for the drawing on Sept. 10, 2024. It was the biggest prize every paid out to a lone lottery winner in Texas, and the 13th largest lottery jackpot in U.S. history.
The next Mega Millions drawing will take place on Tues, Oct. 8 at 11:00 p.m. EST for a jackpot of $129 million.
Mega Millions is currently offered for sale in 45 states, plus Washington, D.C. and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Drawings are Tuesdays and Fridays at 11:00 pm Eastern Time. Tickets cost $2 each.
The Mega Millions winning numbers are published at USA Mega (www.usamega.com) minutes after the drawing takes place.
(Click to display full-size in gallery)
Wait, are u saying megaplier will be automatically added?
I like what I've read so far but at 5 bucks a ticket I'll economize my purchases ie maybe buy my first ticket when it reaches $200 mil and 2 tickets when it reaches $400 mil and so on and so forth.
The automatic multiplier and the 10x ie $10 mil prize is AWESOME!
Now I think I'll go prepare a liverwurst sandwich with lettuce tomato onion Swiss cheese and Dijon mustard on rye bread and a side of 3 gherkin pickles ... and a moxie or birch beer to wash it all down with.
P.U.! Who cut the cheese in here?
These People Really Tripping, Guess Ill B Dropping My Set Of Numbers For MM✌🏾✌🏾✌🏾
5 dollars is insane per line. Nope nope nope. Guess I'll keep trying to win until April but after that, there's just no way. I predict Powerball will follow closely behind as well. Yikes.
Not buying their tickets would send a heck of a statement.
It's up to the people to let them know!
"The Mega Millions Consortium also announced better odds of winning the jackpot."
Cool.
"new proposed odds were 1 in 290 million DOWN from 1 in 302.5 million."
Wow, how generous of them. Bet they'll be bragging about being 2 million to 1 less than PB.
When you think about it ...... when you're standing in line at the lottery checkout ..... how many times do you see the scratchers buy a fiver or 10 or 20 30 or 50 ticket?
Five dollars and a dream anyone???
Yes, a multiplier will be included with every ticket.
The Mega Millions group is not ready to announce how the new Megaplier will work, but my guess is that they will eliminate the Megaplier drawing altogether, and instead every ticket will have a random multiplier generated on it. Any prize your ticket wins would be multiplied by the random Megaplier number printed on the ticket.
Again, this is not based on anything stated by the lotteries, but is my guess based on how other similar multipliers have been implemented elsewhere.
Not sure I like that ..... prefer the multiplier draw!
Vote with your wallet and boycott.
People are retarded though, they'll still sell. They could probably set ticket prices at $10,000 per one line and ppl would still buy them.
I currently spend $3/ticket since I always get the Megaplier so in other words, I spend $6/week on MegaMillions.
I may cut back to once a week unless the cash prize gets high say around $500 million.
Personally, I think this will go over like a ton of bricks and MegaMillions will lose players.
When I first read the article, I thought the increase was steep, but it looks like there won't be nickel and diming and no having the retailer trying to upsell the ticket with additions.
Hopefully, it will stay at $5 for at least Ten years.
Speaking of game changes, is everyone familiar with JumboBucks ending on 11/14 in Georgia?
So it used to cost me $10.00 for 5 tickets and it's now going to cost me$25.00
If that's the case I won't buy tickets until that jackpot hits over 1Billion and even then I'll buy two tickets!
Welp, Mega Millions will be out of my rotation.
Whoa!
Now that's an increase. I guess because things are going so well...
People are struggling as it is.
An example of how the rich get richer ! This is out of the poor man's range.
Sad that the number 25 will be leaving since that is my ball # to my 20+yr combination
guess it will hv to be #24
will m b the combination to PB
it's gonna get crazy if it hits 3bil
wanna see what team of gamblers will put 290mil to win
Wonder what PB will do next, they need to drop #26 and move starting prize at $30mil or move that 2nd game too all states
I already quit playing mega, I'm done with them.
Yes
Guess in April I'll be switching to only playing powerball because I'll never be able to afford 10 dollars a week for mega millions. But that'll mean I can afford powerball with it's multiplier. As it is I pay 10 a week for a combo of both drawings and that is a struggle. Mega Millions you suck salty donkey balls.
That's inflation for ya!
At any rate they should take away the 70 ball also for more second prizes.
I won't be playing unless I'm in an anonymous state and the jackpot is super high. I'm plugging away on different games right now as I have already all but quit Mega because nobody wins.
Speaking of changing games Michigan has 3 dead draw games including our 6/xx game which hasn't been changed in coming on 20 years.... I'll post a thread on that on another forum...
Certainly Powerball will suit sometime. Do like the double play feature once I warmed up to it.
Do any members feel that PB and MM will merge one day?
"That's inflation for ya!" Bingo!
I disagree with their decision to raise prices regardless of how they package it and put a pretty bow on top.
I've been playing since it was originally called "The Big Game" ...sad to say it will come to an end for me. There's no way $5 a line is worth it...
sure bigger prize where I dont see it the lottery getting greedy!
Same here, I haven't played MM in months. Played PB just a couple times in the last 3 months.
But, I won't be surprised to see people jump in when jackpots hit the billion dollar mark. (I won't be one of them).
Boycott Mega Millions. Kill their profits.
If you have an itch to spend $5 on a lotto ticket, buy a scratcher instead. $5 scratchers have much better odds of winning.
If the dollar hyperinflates, don't be stupid and hold dollars during the inflation. Switch to bitcoin for electronic transactions and silver coins for physical transactions
In Canada, Lotto Max is the big game with jackpots up to $80,000,000 where it is presently capped. I live on the US/Canada border so buy them when they max out.
One ticket buys three lines of numbers for $5.00
It would make more sense to have MM at $10.00 for three lines, maybe.
At $5.00 per line, I won't be buying Megamillions any more unless it reaches $2 billion and then just maybe. In the meantime I'm sticking with Powerball.
The solution is to just play Power Ball and double your play with that game instead and ignore this ridiculous price increase for MM. How can you not be satiated winning even 10 million dollars in any game. No one wants billion dollar jackpots. Some may think they do but it would be nothing but problems. What can you buy. How many people do you want to dole it out to. Oh, you say I will invest it all and be rich, rich and even more rich. Then when I turn 79 I will cash out and start spending it.
I rarely play maga millions and will definitely not be playing at $5. I prefer to play two Powerball for $4 and one fantasy 5
That price increase lets me out of playing. While I like Mega Millions and it's huge jackpots, the price per line will stop me from playing. That price point is too much. Would rather spend $5 on 5 chances at the Texas Lotto. A win would still make me a millionaire, and have more chances to win for the same investment.
lottery a rip in the first place gonna raise the price nope im done giving my hard earn money away
Probability Math HAZ predicted a
MEGA death of an even moe terrible Game..
My 3 lines will become 1 line so I'll be saving $2/week... and stop playing until the after tax etc payout is $100M. I'll stick with my regular numbers & drop all QP's.
As it is, it used to be about $230M jackpot to walk away with $100M, but these days it's closer to $330M jackpot to walk away with $100M.
"I think this will go over like a ton of bricks and MegaMillions will lose players."
Mega Millionz HAZ ALREADY lost playerz..
TAXES are fraud misleading advertisements; if I win, I will ask for tickets that were sold since the last winning day,
For example, 50 states sold an average of 10 million tickets at $2 for each state. (10*2)*50= 1 Billion, and the start-up prize is $20 million. So for drawing 9/13/2024, the first draw of $20M, according to the Mega Millions website, all payout is: 2,799,586.00 the expenses at 20% is $200M, the profit is: $797,200,414.00, now for the next draw people start spending more and sales tickets start going up at 5%. My point here is how come they don't have enough funds to pay the complete 20M cash and they offer annuity when the profit for minimum dray is 797 millions.
Let's say the second draw is the same profit, an estimated 797*2, and the jackpot is 31M.
So you want to tell me they don't have 31 million from 1,5 billion and only two draws?
If I win, I will sue them before I claim it because once you claim, you lose the case and have already accepted the offer.
I'm curious what type of people will still play after the price increase. Deep pocketed players who buy thousands of dollars' worth of tickets, huge lottery pools buying hundreds or thousands of dollars' worth of tickets, and gambling addicts probably won't change their habits much. But it appears they are going to lose most of the casual players. For a while a lot of the lottery advertising in my state was trying to tap into that casual player market, now it looks like lotteries are pivoting back to the hard core lotto fanatics.
I had missed your sandwich recipe, welcome back.
The changes are very enticing.
I have always added the Megaplier and for me the addition will be from $3 to $5. A $2 increase as opposed to a $3 increase.
I don't know if that makes it feel better but I love the 10X win - 10M sounds good.
The 10M makes it match close to the PB Double Play which is available for $4 in some states.
All in all, I like that the increased ticket price will cause larger-starting jackpots, as well as faster-growing jackpots. There will be no “breakeven prizes,” meaning that every winning ticket will be more than the cost of a $5 ticket.
Am cool with that. A $2 increase won't ruin my budget.
Play responsibly 🙏
I am on board 100%
I have never bought a scratcher, and yes you are right, they cost an arm and a leg.
I don't mind the $5 play plus all the extra goodies.
Did you call me 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Wow so I buy 5 lines for $10 when the jackpot reaches around $300m. Now those same 5 lines will be $25 so a 150% increase in cost....
This likely means like me less lines for each spend. I would get two for $10. Each line has the same odds but less lines will be "locked up" per draw so we are looking at perhaps only two wins for a massive $3+billion jackpot a year.
I believe that everyday, there are people that quit playing the lottery, for whatever reasons.
I also believe that everyday, there are people that start playing the lottery. Maybe they were underage and now they are of age.
There are those that will play MM for the first time when it's $5. For such people there is no comparison, all they know is that it costs $5 a ticket and they will go with that.
All in all, there are those that will drop off and those that will come on board and such is life.
Continuing to play or not to is a personal choice.
However, the notion that if you stop playing the MM fraternity will be hurt that is a little far fetched - my thoughts don't kill the messenger.
California's never offered the multiplier options because of our parimutuel rule, so are we just going to pay $5 and not get anything to show for it? Wow this increases my enthusiasm so much /s
Good question, but unfortunately it's really difficult to get anyone at the lottery to open up about it. My guess (based on no concrete information) is that they will use the same $5 ticket price, with no multiplier, and the prizes will just be bigger than today. Check out the presentation slide at the end of the story — it contains an "average prize" column that might end up being close to what the average California prize will be for each level. Again, just a guess.
How can the price be insane when search ffs go up to $100 per tkt and u may get $0
This is an insult to the intelligence of lottery players!
They obviously think we're a bunch of mindless, docile, impressionable, gullible sheep!
I don't hv any $ bit will play 1-2 sets each game been playing nbr for 20yrs
So does this mean all of the data people have worked on for years is now just garbage ? Maybe someone was getting close...
Oh no, that had not even crossed my mind 😔
It's time to start all over again for the systems people.
Maybe a little twitching here and there and a little fine tuning will do the trick.
But am sure the systems people are into pick 3 and 4. I don't see a lot of anything for MM or PB.
Their motivation is greed...nothing more.
If only they were similarly motivated to help the poor.
Just saw this on the news, its ridiculous I don't trust it 😆 but that prolly cuz I'm from NY... look what NYL did to our Take 5 with 2 draws the payouts are way less, and then also with the NYL Quick draw yeah they give you a multiply option for extra $ and most times it's either 0 or 2.
Lastly, Mega Millions anticipates bigger and faster growing jackpots occurring more frequently as a result of the changes.
With fewer people playing and fewer tickets sold that's a given.
Bottom line it's: "We're gonna lower the odds, but it's gonna cost ya".
Yes, but when there are three tickets winning $1m out of 1,042,850 tickets... 1 in 347k (https://lottoedge.com/ct-lottery/scratch/millionaire-maker-1774/
That's a $30 ticket...
Compared with 1 in 302,000k for megamillions jackpot and
1 in 12,607,306 of a $1m under the current rules... (the scratchie is about 36x better chance of winning $1m)
So, a $30 scratchie has 36x more chance of winning $1m compared with a $2 mega millions ticket
A $5 ticket with a mulitplier.. depends on how the multiplier is selected.. but...
But a very reasonable guess..
They would have to charge the same $5 to "earn" their share of the first division, That would mean that all lower divisions would be pools 2.5x current pools...
They increased the cost of both MM and PB to $2 per line and changed the starting jackpot from $20M to $40M...
The pandemic happens and they reduced the starting jackpot down to $20M BUT NEVER reduced the price of the ticket.
Now they are offering an opening jackpot of $50M at $5 per line......
I am curious to see what PB will do....
Nonetheless, with this price increase, I may sit this one out.
To be fair.. (re the $20m vs $40m starting jackpot)
Currently the cash value is about 50% of the jackpot value.
During "peak" COVID, the cash value exceeded 83%.
remember, the jackpot is the "value" of annuity that the cash value could buy.. And it couldn't buy much (Treasury bonds were under 2% IIRC.)
having a start jackpot twice what the cash value could buy is (sort of) asking for trouble (more money going out in prizes than is coming in as revenue)
As for $50m start jackpot for $5.. It is 2.5 times the current start jackpot with a similar 2.5 times ticket price.