One jackpot winner four drawings into the new game
By Kate Northrop
Friday's Mega Millions drawing resulted in the first jackpot win since the updated version of the game went live earlier this month, with one ticket in Ohio scooping a jackpot worth $112 million.
The $112 million Mega Millions jackpot was won by a single ticket in Ohio on Friday, making the ticket holder the first official winner of the enhanced game since ticket prices increased to $5.
It took four drawings for someone to hit the jackpot in the new Mega Millions game, making the lucky Ohio player the third Mega Millions jackpot winner of the year. The lone winning ticket matched all five white balls plus the gold Mega Ball to win the $112 million prize.
The winning numbers in the Friday, April 18, 2025 drawing are 5, 13, 15, 17, and 28, with Mega Ball number 1. According to the Ohio Lottery, the lucky winner chose their own numbers.
"Moments like this are exactly why we reimagined the game," Mega Millions Consortium Lead Director Joshua Johnston said in a press release. "This jackpot win — and the millions of dollars going to non-jackpot winners every drawing — is the result of years of planning, collaboration, and listening to what players want. We're proud of what this game is already delivering for our players and beneficiaries and are looking forward to the future big wins to come."
The winner will choose between being paid $112 million in 30 annually-increasing payments over 29 years or the lump-sum cash value of $49.3 million.
According to USA Mega's Mega Millions Jackpot Analysis, after all taxes are paid, the winner will either receive $67.9 million by the end of 29 years, or $29.4 million in cash all at once. Ohio has a 3.5% state tax on lottery prizes.
Per Ohio state law, the winner has 180 days from the date of the drawing to come forward to claim the prize.
The winning ticket was purchased at Giant Eagle on Mayfield Road in South Euclid, an inner-ring suburb of Cleveland.
For the four drawings at the new $5 price point, the Mega Millions Consortium said, total prizes across all eight non-jackpot prize tiers were $27.5 million, four times what they would have been under the old number matrix. The prize payouts under the old matrix was calculated at nearly $6.8 million based on the same number of winners at each prize level.
This jackpot run spanned seven total drawings. In the April 18 drawing there were 229,771 winning tickets across all non-jackpot prize tiers.
In addition to the jackpot winner, 13 lucky players matched four white balls plus the gold Mega Ball number and won between $20,000 and $50,000. Six of those tickets had the 2X multiplier, five had the 3X, one had the 4X, and one had the 5X. Of those winning tickets with the 2X multiplier, one was sold in California and won $23,872.
With the jackpot being won Friday, the next Mega Millions annuity jackpot estimate for Tuesday's drawing is reset to its starting point of $50 million, which was previously $20 million under the game's old version.
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 $5 each.
The Mega Millions winning numbers are published at USA Mega (www.usamega.com) minutes after the drawing takes place.
An upside to the high ticket cost boycott is that I didn't lose any money in the latest MM run-up.
$5 a loss per line adds up quick on a super low-odds lotto like MM.
Hope you had a hoppy Easter and didn't lose any money to MM.
I might buy a tix if of reached 2 billion, and only 1 at that 🤣🤣
I'm willing to try if it hits $250million cash lump sum.
This jackpot win proves that Mega Millions new game matrix is a major success with lottery players unlike Powerball. Players rarely win smaller prizes in Powerball. Mega Millions new game has better prizes, thereof rewarding non jackpot winners with nice wins.
Mmh, I did not win anything and do not consider my not winning "a loss"
The money spent is from my entertainment bucket so my entertainment did not end up so well 🤣
I am yet to win anything since the game changed, I have played one ticket every draw so that's $20.
Onward we go 💪
I won $25 got the mega Ball 01 with 5X 😋🤭
* l won nothing, no surprise there.
Man, the big kahunas at MM are in panic mode! I wouldn't wanna work in the media department there. Revenue is down and prize money is up, but they won't tell you that when it's easier to try and get us all excited by telling us about less people winning more money with the multiplier.
Based on the number of winners and the overall odds they took in an estimated $26.4M in sales and paid $5.2M in prizes to roughly 230,000 winners for the Friday, 4/19/25 draw, with the jackpot standing at $112M.
A comparable draw on 2/11/25 with a $110M jackpot paid out $2.5 M in prize money to 466,000 winners on sales of $27.6M. Bear in mind that with the optional Megaplier in place, the average ticket price for this drawing was $2.50, NOT $5.
So, revenue AND volume are down with the new, more costly version of the game. Mind you, when a big pot comes along, some of the price resistors will come out of hiding and prop the numbers up. But I'd like to think I speak for the majority when I say that things were fine as they were. Unless you win the jackpot or a 2nd prize, no other prize is gonna change your life- regardless of whether or not you get a 10X multiplier. I'd rather cash a smaller ticket here and there than to be forced to get a multiplier that I actually bought pretty often.
Time will tell if I'm right.
all fixed only one player again when jackpot gets big
It wasn't that big for most who will not play a 5.00 line unless it is 8 to 10 times higher than 112 million. Ridiculous notion to say it was fixed. They want it to go up to the stratosphere but it is not going to climb as fast as they want it to.
112 M advertised but finally it just 30 M ,you get what you don't see lol ...
P.U.: What Stinx????
I'll tell you what Stinx .
Mega Millions $5- ticket Stinx !¡!!
Mark my words ..... this time next year ... PB + MM merger talks due to the 5 dollar fiasco .
Now back to my liverwurst sandwich with ......
The Shag
There is no way in the world they would merge the games.
To me, it's great for more choice that the games are quite different now. I like variety and more options. If you don't like the higher price, why not just play something different?
I wonder what tonight's sales are gonna be. I'm think down. We shall see though..............
Technically it's not the first full run under the new game rules. Because the the jackpot rose from 20m at a price of $2 a ticket. Only four draws at $5 a ticket.
I won $12 on Powerball yesterday and $5 on Easy5 the day before. Debating if I should just keep it or buy a MegaMillions for tonight or Friday.
I guess I'll think it over.
I was at the store today and the same ones who come in there and spends lots on the 20, and 30, and 50 bucks scratchoffs said that they aren't going to buy MegaMillion now that it has gone up to $5 a ticket. Go figure. lolol
I got my one QP with a 2x on it for tonight's draw.
I will take 2,000,000 any day 🤣🤣
$2million sounds good to me too. Didn't get one for tonight but still considering Friday.
Todd I'll play PB when it reaches minimum 200 mil and I'll hold my nose and play MM when it reaches minimum 400 mil. And if I were half sane I'd add that those figures are for the cash amt.
P.S. I like choice and competition too btw.
And when PB is minus 200 mil and MM is minus 400 mil I can always play Lucky 4 Life and or some other in-state game.
Last night. 4/22/25 only 4.5 million tickets sold in Megamillions. Pathetic.
That is 50% of what they were a few months ago at this level.
You could have predicted that. The jackpot only goes up by $10 million for this Friday's drawing. It will be a slow climb now to $1 to $2 billion assuming the 6 numbers drawn are not below 32 as they were for Tuesday's drawing. That happens only twice a year on average, so the birthday folks selecting their own numbers win.
If you want a 2nd tier prize like 2 million why not play a state lotto instead with half the matrix of numbers. Most of those are only 1.00 a line.
Thrifty you don't know what you are talking about. Powerball has winners of smaller prizes EVERY SINGLE DRAWING. For the Powerball drawing for April 21, 2025, there were a total of 303,566 winners of smaller prizes from $4 to $150K, For the Powerball drawing for April 19, 2025 there were a total of 490,843 winners of smaller prizes from $4 to 1M. What sense would it make to play the lottery if no one ever won any prizes. People like you are the ones spreading "the lottery is rigged nonsense" All of this information can be found on this website if you would bother to look. The media is also responsible, when they only report about people who win the jackpot, making people think there are no other prizes that can be won.
If the game doesn't make money, they might have to change it again.
I do play my state lotto but it doesn't often get that high. I decided to get a ticket for Friday picking 5 numbers myself and letting the terminal pick the MegaBall. I ended up with a 2X multiplier.
Maybe this will be my lucky day.
There is no reason for the Powerball to merge with Mega Millions. Powerball is doing just fine with draws three days a week still at $2 each. Mega Millions is the one to make the mistake by raising the price to $5 each with two draws a week
To get the billion dollar jackpots they are going to have to go to 75 numbers in the main matrix. Plus add another in the Mega ball to make it 25 again. That'll get it up there.
Sales don't look good.
The cash value from the $50m start point last draw increased only $4m dollars to the rolled over $60m advertised pot.
This after the ticket price went up 150%
They need to DECREASE to $1 tickets again! That will help sales more than a $5 ticket 🤣
10 million dollar jackpot increase. Yikes! Doesn't look good.........
I have always seen the lottery as a fun way to pay taxes, which in my state goes to education, something I support. However, I only play by the value of the pretax expectation value, agreeing to lose money playing the lottery when even when it's ridiculously low, 0.2. Below 0.2 I don't play.
As the expectation value increases, the number of tickets I play increases, adding tickets as it hits 0.3, 0.4, etc.
There have been a few rare occasions, with huge jackpots where the expectation value has exceeded 1 for both Powerball and Megamillions under the old formats.
The non-jackpot expectation value accounting for the probabilities of the included multipliers has increased for the 5 dollar ticket to 0.18 from 0.12 under the previous format. However, once the ticket is purchased and the multiplier has been determined, the expectation value collapses.
For a $5 ticket, I will only agree to pay taxes by buying a ticket if it hits 0.3, which I expect will take a very long time. We'll see. Right now its 0.20 including the 0.18 for lower tier prizes.
I don't expect to buy many or any of these tickets. I'm reasonably well off, but not rich. In these inflationary times with the economy due to collapse from tariffs and other nonsense, five bucks a ticket is too rich for my taste. I don't expect to get rich playing the lottery, of course, but again, it's entertainment and support for education.
It will take a very long time for it to reach 0.3 I expect, which is the point at which I would have bought two tickets rather than one. At 0.3 I might buy one, at 0.5 two, and so on, to mimic what I would have played under the $2 ticket.
I see all these fancy mathematics. Theories, ect. Anyone of you guys ever won using these methods? I'm not being a smart azz either. I'm seriously curious?
What this I am not going to play until the jackpot reaches a certain level does is reduce your chances of ever winning. You should pay no attention to the amount of the jackpot. There certainly is always enough in there to satiate anyone. With only 156 chances to play a year you cannot afford to miss any drawings if your intended goal is to hit the thing.
You didn't answer the question.
No one has won big using those methods on here anyway.
Mega Millions is dead in the water. They shot themselves in the foot with this increase. OK, Friday nights numbers were impossible but no one cares because no one is playing it anymore. It is only going up 10 million next Tuesday. watch it only go up 7 million. Players will see that and say I wasn't going to play it anymore anyway because of the 5.00 a line but now for sure I am not playing it with this slow jackpot crawl. There is wholesale panic at Mega Millions lottery headquarters. Heads will be rolling over this that you can count on. All they have to do is revert back to the old 2.00 + 1.00 if you want it way of playing this game and this "mistake" they made will be forgotten.
I agree! Only reason I still play it is because I've been playing the same numbers every week for about 20 years. I buy 2 tickets a week. That's it. I will not buy anymore for 5 dollars a line. When the jackpot gets high. I'm still not buying extra .It's a pipe dream to begin with. Because of the odds. All they did was up the price. Remove one ball. And forced a multiplier. And the grouping of balls I frequently see is a huge red flag 🚩 for me. But that's a whole nother story. I'm hoping someone on here hits it. So It can restore a little confidence in the game for me again.
I see all kinds of stuff on here. Charts. Advanced mathematics. Ect ect ect. But have not heard of anyone winning this way. Only people I ever heard of winning was that Richard Lusting. Then I saw some old guy that was winning because it was an elimation game."I can't remember his name" And of course the carrier services. And the ones that rigged the games and where caught. That Eddie Tippton b.s. would probably still be going on if he didn't get greedy.
Actually, they do not want anyone hitting the jackpot now until it gets to the level they need it to get to in order to get the lost sales revenue back. They have gotten themselves into a Catch 22 situation. No one wants to play it because no one is playing it.
Your 100% correct. I'm sure they don't want anyone hitting period. 😂 But that brings up another question. Has anyone ever hit a starting jackpot? I know the odds are astromical. But I don't think I have ever heard of anyone hitting a starting jackpot. I could be wrong though.
thars been a few & albeit uncommon instances of folks hitting the starting jackpot
Todd should have the answers
Of course, it's happened several times in the past.