Usa Mega Mega Millions Analysis (2024)

FAQs

How do you win $1000000 on Mega Millions? ›

To score a jackpot in the Mega Millions, a player must match all five white balls and the gold Mega Ball. The odds of scoring a jackpot prize are 1 in 302,575,350. Tickets cost $2 and can be bought on the day of the drawing, but sales times vary by state.

USA Mega, which tracks Mega Millions statistics, says the most common Mega Millions numbers are 10, 3, 17, 14 and 46 for the first five numbers. The most common Mega ball number is 11.

Regardless of whether you play the “hot” or “cold” numbers, travel across state lines to purchase your ticket, or use another method (like lottery wheeling or the Delta Lotto System), it's important to note that your odds of winning the Mega Millions jackpot are the same as anyone else's: 1 in 302.6 million.

The prize may be paid as an annuity of 30 payments over 29 years, or as a single lump sum cash payment. Mega Millions jackpot winners will select their payment preference at the time of their prize claim.

Mega Millions latest

How to increase your chances of winning? The unsurprising short answer is, buy as many tickets as you can within reason. That's according to Mark Glickman, a senior lecturer of statistics at Harvard University.

If you match one regular number and the Mega Ball, the prize is $4. If you match two white balls only, there is no prize. You can win a Mega Millions payout with one of nine different number combinations, and the prizes range from $2 to the jackpot.

The five most frequent numbers are 17, 31, 10, 46, and 20 — all five have been drawn at least once since the last Mega Millions jackpot was won in December. As for the Mega Ball, only six numbers have been drawn more than 100 times: 1, 3, 9, 10, 15, and 7.

Lottery Winning Dream

Well Stefan Mandel is one of those people, winning a whopping 14 times, but for him, luck didn't have much to do with it. That's because Mandel found a way to beat the system, a legal loophole he exploited to make millions of dollars, only to have it all backfire and crash down on him.

There is no wrong way to choose Mega Millions numbers. There's also no magic formula to pick the winning numbers. But ... we went back and looked at the winning numbers for every drawing since the jackpot started at $20 million in April. We didn't find a particular pattern.

To win the jackpot, you'll need to match numbers with all five white balls, plus the gold Mega Ball. If you win, you can take a 30-year annuity for the full jackpot amount, or an upfront cash lump sum that's worth about 48% of the jackpot.

What are the odds of getting 5 numbers on Mega Millions? ›

Step 1: The chance of getting 5 numbers correct out of 5 numbers drawn from 70 unique numbers is 1 in 12,103,014 (see #1, Step 1 above.) Step 2: The chance of correctly choosing the Mega Ball is 1 in 25. Therefore, the chances of incorrectly choosing the Mega Ball are, conversely, 24 in 25.

Tonight's drawing may unveil a lucky jackpot winner. If no one claims tonight's prize, the jackpot may reach the $1 billion mark in the next week. Only six previous jackpots have passed this threshold, according to Mega Millions.

What are the lump sum lottery winnings after taxes? The federal tax on the lottery is determined by the federal marginal rates, which is 37 percent in the highest bracket. In practice, there is a 24 percent federal withholding of the gross prize, plus the remaining tax, based on your filing status.

When you win a Powerball or Mega Millions jackpot, there is a 15-day waiting period between the draw date and when the jackpot will be paid out, as money from ticket sales needs to be collected in order to pay out the jackpot.

If you live in Georgia, your state lottery tax is 5.49%. After federal and state taxes you'd pocket $268,613,512. If you live in New York, get out your wallet, because the state taxes lottery winnings at 8.82%.

$1 million prize: One in 12,607,306 (matching all five white balls) $10,000 prize: One in 931,001 (matching four white balls and the Mega Ball) $500 prize: One in 38,792 (matching four white balls) $200 prize: One in 14,547 (matching three white balls and the Mega Ball)

There are nine ways to win in Mega Millions®, and prizes range from $2 all the way to the jackpot. See our How to Play page for details of all prize levels.

If you win a Mega Millions® jackpot, you will choose how to be paid: Cash Option or Annual Payout. Prize claim parameters vary from state to state. Contact your Mega Millions lottery for detailed information. Annuity option: The Mega Millions annuity is paid out as one immediate payment followed by 29 annual payments.